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The Psychology of 
Saving Faith 


a By 
S. M.YROBINSON, M.D. 
Orlando, Florida 


The Christian Alliance Publishing Company 
260 West 44th Street, New York, N. Y. 


Copyricut, 1926, sy 


S. Mites RoBINson 


_ Printed in the United States of America 


Chapter 


I. 
rt 
III. 
IV. 
Vv. 
VIL 
VIL. 
VIII. 
TX: 
x 
“ae 
XIL 
XIII. 
XIV. 
XV. 
XVI. 
XVII. 


XVIII. 


CONTENTS 


Page 
TOCFEERURIE EL PA y ficlae ntt eed) Date aie ole Rte» ots 5 
The Psychology of Saving Faith ...... 9 
Threeness in the Word .........5000% 15 
PAP SRISEIL tate wits fob tie stake ately Cx CP sis ott 28 
PPLIUISUIE POT SV LATE Vinay a aver cobs! 79 Sis aia lates 34 
PUTT eos L CLEA i atstawsie aie ket ae Teele ti at) 41 
In the Day That They Ate Thereof .... 45 
PABRI EMME NTROYALEXLSD wists acs Sona bbs, eis tohecatueant al ee 52 
Redemption—The First Work of Grace 
PORTE OININOT ee | Ss ieteieia ares tinea ata tale 63 
Reconciliation—The Second Work of 
israce’ Hor ‘the spinners); \ssiav sens a «5 76 
Regeneration—The First Work of Grace 
Tre the wellevere. ili gine rt rami 86 
The Renewing of the Holy Spirit—The 
Second Work of Grace Jn the Believer 95 
The Renewing of the Holy Spirit (Con- 
tinued) The Believer’s Word ....... 111 
The Renewing of the Holy Spirit. (Con- 
tinued) The Believer’s Works ...... 119 
The Renewing of the Holy Spirit (Con- 
tinued) The Believer’s Worship .... 127 
Rehabilitation — The Third Work of 
Grace Imithe Believer .............. LSS 
The Earnest of the Spirit—The Believ- 
ete Present: Plea verin, essree isi vcvele o/s 143 
Justification—The Ground-Line of the 
PARR TICEUIECHON, fener RIN UO AM uae ba 154 


Conclusion 


Sie BIOS ORO Ce eS See LS OS ORS 6 Ee 2 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
In 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https ://archive.org/details/psychologyofsavi0Orobi_0 


FOREWORD 


URRENT literature is giving large place to what 

is claimed to be a latter-day conception of the 
relative importance of doctrine in the religious life 
and it is apparent that a considerable number of sup- 
posedly thinking people are frankly minimizing the 
importance of doctrine while they emphasize the im- 
portance of works. 

If the average unbeliever, in whose behalf, pre- 
sumably, these gratuitous labors are being undertaken, 
does not find his way successfully through the maze 
of modern doctrine it is not to be wondered at. The 
multiplicity of creeds, the contradictions of dogma are 
enough to bewilder the seeker for Truth. But it 
should not be forgotten, as it seems to be by the re- 
formers of “religion,” that Grace saves “through 
faith” and faith operates through doctrine. “Except 
a man be born of water [always, when used as a type, 
standing for the word of God] and the Spirit, he can- 
not enter the kingdom of God.” But above all it should 
not be forgotten that salvation is “not of works.” 
This is the serious error of the self-styled “modern- 
ist,” who is no more modern, in fact, than the foolish 
Galatians who seem to have had about the same con- 
ception of the purpose and purport of “religion.” 

The revelation of God concerning His Son, which 
revelation we ignore at our peril, is couched in terms 

5 


6 FOREWORD 


of doctrine. We cannot fulfill the requirements of 
saving faith, simple though they be, and ignore the 
doctrines in which they are presented. Without doc- 
trine there is no faith; without faith there is no grace; 
without grace there is no salvation. 

To those, then, who feel themselves at sea upon the 
ocean of life without chart or compass, who scan the 
horizon of their souls with ever growing disappoint- 
ment and uneasiness that in the gathering darkness no 
beacon of certainty appears; whose appraisement of 
the dogmas of the sectarians and ecclesiastics is shot 
through with misgiving and unbelief because of the 
apparent contradictions therein betrayed; whom the 
inconsistent lives of many of the professed followers 
of the Lowly Nazarene even more profoundly stumble, 
these few lines are addressed in the hope that a pres- 
entation of doctrinal truth based, not upon reasonings 
of men or deductions of Science, but upon the text of 
that Word which claims to be our only authority on 
the subject, may serve to throw some light upon the 
way in which, dubiously, but honestly enough, they 
may be faring. 

In this discussion no attempt will be made to answer 
questions of modern infidelity. The authenticity and 
authority of the Bible is accepted without reservation ; 
what “Science” says on the subject is nothing more 
than the wisdom of men, which is foolishness with 
God. What is science today was not science yester- 
day and may not be science tomorrow, while the Word 


FOREWORD 7 


of God has withstood the onslaughts of its enemies 
for thousands of years and still stands inviolate. 


If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is 
greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified 
of his Son. 

He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in 
himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; 
because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. 

And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, 
and this life is in his Son. 

He that hath the Son hath life; ... —1 John 5: 9-12. 


we e 





CHAPTER I 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SAVING FAITH 


HESE are the days when the Devil’s hoot-owls 

are working overtime in their effort to frighten 
Faith out of her safe but sometimes dimly lighted 
domicile. The forces of evil seem to be getting better 
organized and more loud-mouthed and shameless in 
their antagonism to every phase of truth. 

Leaders of modern thought, such as instructors in 
the schools for the young and the heads of some of 
our great educational institutions, are frankly assailing 
the fundamentals of faith, and it is high time—if it 
ever was high time—for a concerted effort among 
those who stand for the Divinely Inspired Word to 
manifest some militant concern for the ultimate out- 
come of such persistent and brazen denials of well- 
nigh everything that the Book presents as truth. 

That this “militant concern” is being manifested in 
many ways and from many high and influential sources 
is not to be denied and is something to be thankful for; 
and while I do not feel that the “author and finisher 
of our faith’ needs any assistance in the carrying out 
of His Plan, it seems to me that even a very small 
ripple upon the surface of devout thought may indi- 
cate to some one that the Spirit of Truth still moves 
upon the face of the waters and may be used by the 
Spirit to the glory of His name: hence this series of 
studies in the practical workings of saving faith, 

9 


10 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


viewed from the standpoint of psychological cause and 
effect. 

I have chosen as a designation of the line of thought 
which I hope to be permitted to present to you, the 
expression, THe PsycHotocy oF Savine Fairu, be- 
cause the laws of cause and effect to which I have 
just referred resemble quite closely the laws of the 
science of psychology. I hope to be able to show you 
that the true psychology is to be found revealed in the 
Word of God, and that it has very intimate relation 
to the process known as “saving faith.” 


Having ventured the statement that the true psy- 
chology is to be found revealed in the Word of God, 
I may well be expected to substantiate that statement 
if I am going to make good the claim that the series 
of studies that J am undertaking to present to you 
can be rightly called THe Psycuotocy or SAVING 
Farru. 


If you were to make a careful study, as I have, of 
the latest application of the science referred to, you 
would find that, shorn of high-sounding and mystify- 
ing terminology, the last analysis shows the operation 
of its laws to be simply the operation of the laws of 
mental initiative. 

Psychology is a codification of the laws of cause 
and effect in the realm of thought. You think a 
thought; that thought is a cause which calls for an 
effect. The effect is the action which the thought, if 
it has its way with you, will produce, whether the 


OF SAVING FAITH 11 


thought originated with you or came to your mind 
from some other mind as a suggestion. 

Let me quote the epitome of applied psychology as 
given us by a recent writer who claims to know all 
about it: 

“All human achievement comes about through some 
form of bodily activity. 

“All bodily activity is caused, controlled and directed 
by the mind. 

“The mind is the instrument you must employ for 
the accomplishment of any purpose. 

“Every thought you hold tends to manifest itself in 
action. 

“The action determines your relation to things. 
What you do, resulting from what you think, makes 
you what you are.” 

In other words, what you think, if it finds the ex- 
pression in action which it strives to have, will so im- 
print itself upon your own character that you will come 
sooner or later to be the creature of your own acted 
thoughts. How important, then, that those thoughts 
should be true and pure and noble, for if they are, 
then you will be true and pure and noble. 

Now listen to a prince of applied psychology speak- 
ing by the Holy Spirit in his letter to the Philippians, 
fourth chapter and eighth verse: 

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, what- 
soever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, 
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are 
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there 


12 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these 
things.” 

Also as a corollary the words of the Divine Psy- 
chologist : 

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and 
doeth them, I will liken*him unto a wise man, which built his 
house upon a rock: 

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds 
blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was 
founded upon a rock. 

And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth 
them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his 
house upon the sand: 

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds 
blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was 
the fall of it. —Matthew 7: 24-27. 

But perhaps it were just as well that we use no more 
time in what might be considered a one-sided contro- 
versy. Let what I have said pass as my excuse for 
designating these studies “Tur PsycHoLocy oF Sav- 
ING FaitH,” and let us address ourselves at once to 
the consideration of our subject. 


The line of thought upon which our studies are to 
be based is to be found in the statement that follows, 
viz., 

Triunity ts the substratum upon which rests creation. 


The great Creator has written the laws of His own 
Being upon all His handiwork. 

There is nothing strange or even new in this state- 
ment. It is merely another way of saying what Paul 
said to the Romans: 


OF SAVING FAITH 13 


“For the invisible things of him from the creation 
of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the 
things that are made...” 

If you were to write a book—that is to say create 
a book—you could not help writing yourself into it. 
You, yourself, would inevitably be discovered in that 
book. Just so the Divine Author has revealed Him- 
self in His creation. 

As long ago as 1892 one Dr. Pryse published in the 
late Dr. Brooks’ periodical, ‘“The Truth,” an article 
of some six or eight pages, consisting almost entirely 
of an enumeration of the suggestions of triunity 
found in nature. 

I would like to go further and say that not only 
does nature reveal adumbrations (as Dr. Pryse called 
them) of triunity, but it might be shown that animate 
nature has as its primal law of being the unification of 
three principles, and these three principles are: 


FORCE, 
DESIGN, 
EMBODIMENT. 


I shall not undertake to follow this thought into the 
lower realms of being. We are engaged in a study 
of the psychology of saving faith; but a simple illus- 
tration may suffice to make clear how it can be that 
the underlying essential of nature’s very existence is 
a unification of these three principles. 


14 _ ‘THE PSYCHOLOGY 


Let us take as our illustration an ordinary chain of 
three links. The chain is made of iron. Please note 
that considerable force may be expended in an effort to 
rend apart the three links without success. What holds 
them together against such effort? Another Force. It 
is called cohesion—the attraction of cohesion. 

Please note again that this chain is a chain because 
of the pattern of the links. You cannot make a chain 
of cubes, or spheres, or anything that does not have 
as an essential of its design that each member of its 
totality is capable of encircling one or more of the 
other members, as one link encircles one or more of 
the others. This involves the principle of Design. As 
for the third member of this mechanical triunity, I 
have already stated that the chain is made of iron. 
The chain-thought is embodied in tron. Here we have 
plainly 

FORCE, 

DESIGN, 

EMBODIMENT. 
But more of this later. 

I have said that Nature’s Author has written Him- 
self into His creation just as you would inevitably 
write yourself into any creation of your mind. 

As we enter upon the study of Triunity as the sub- 
stratum of things in the spiritual realm, and especially 
in respect to the Plan of Salvation and the Psychology 
of Saving Faith, I will ask you first of all to look at 
the reflection of the Divine Author in His Revealed 
Word—the Bible. 


CHAPTER II 
THREENESS IN THE WORD 


Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal 
life: and they are they which testify of me. John 5: 39. 

T HAS been suggested in our opening chapter that 

triunity fills a large place in the constitution of 
“the things that are made,” and we undertook to 
exhibit one instance of its existence in the realm of 
the so-called commonplace. We would now also sug- 
gest that it is the substructure of the being of Man 
himself. 

If, then, for the sake of our argument we shall con- 
cede the triune nature of Man (1 Thes. 5:23), it 
would not seem illogical to expect that the plan by 
which God purposes to restore His lost son to fellow- 
ship and communion with Himself would be adapted to 
his triune need. Nor would it seem strange if we 
should find the only authority we have on the subject, 
itself claiming to be a divinely inspired revelation of 
the Plan, dealing largely in three-ness as a means of 
expressing its truths. It will not be unprofitable to give 
a little time to this thought. 

A correct view of the primary divisions of the Bible 
will show it to consist of three parts: “The Old Testa- 
ment,” “the New Testament” and “Revelation.” With- 
out doubt Revelation is rightly to be considered a part 
by itself. It is neither New Testament nor Old Testa- 


15 
2 


16 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


ment, nor, in fact, a “testament” at all, inasmuch as 
its “force” is not established by the death of the 
testator. 


And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, 
that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgres- 
sions that were under the first testament, they which are called 
might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. 

For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be 
the death of the testator. 

For a testament ts of force after men are dead: otherwise 
it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. 

—Heb. 9: 15-17. 

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive 
for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. 

| —Rev. 1:18. 


So momentous is it in its import that it carries with 
it, by the word of the Lord, a blessing for him who 
reads or hears, and dire punishment for him who adds 
to or takes therefrom. 


Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of 
this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: 
for the time ts at hand. 

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the 
prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, 
God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this 
book: —Rev. 1:3, 22: 18. 


Each one of these three parts is itself a group of 
three. 

The Old Testament we find, by the word of the 
Lord Himself, to consist of Law, Psalms and Prophets. 


And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake 
unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be 


OF SAVING FAITH 17 


fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the 
prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. —Luke 24: 44. 

Revelation we have by Him likewise divided into 
“the things which thou hast seen, the things which are, 
and the things which shall be hereafter.” 

Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which 
are, and the things which shall be hereafter; —Rey. 1:19. 

In the New Testament proper we have: 

(1) The Gospels—the same narrative told four 
times ,— 

(2) The Acts of the Apostles, and,— 

(3) The Epistles. 

In the Gospels the Life is revealed.—See 2 Tim. 1: 10. 


In the Acts it is given (more than five thousand con- 
versions are recorded in the book of the Acts), and 
in the Epistles the rules for living the Life, after it is 
received, are elucidated. 

Then take the Bible as a whole. It will be found 
to consist of another group of three; viz., Doctrine, 
Revelation and Prophecy. All of its contents might 
be included under these three heads, using “revela- 
tion” in its broadest sense. And it might be well added 
that recognition of this classification is of no small 
importance as a key to its import. 

Then, again, Law gives the color to doctrine, Povelae 
tion and prophecy in the Old Testament and Grace in 
the New, while Power characterizes all of the Book 
of Revelation—another group of three. 

Still another group of three is suggested as the 
classification in God’s mind of mankind. In 1 Co- 
rinthians 10: 32 we have the Jew, the Gentile and the 


18 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


Church of God as a sweeping classification of all 
peoples in this dispensation. 

Very few students of the Word have failed to notice 
the many recurrences of three-ness therein. A mere 
enumeration of these would occupy too large a part 
of this chapter, and no doubt prove tiresome to the 
reader. We will therefore undertake to name only a 
few of the most striking, although less frequently rec- 
ognized, which may serve to call to the reader’s mind 
many others with which he is more or less familiar. 

Three members of the Father trinity; Father, Son 
and Holy Spirit (1 John 5:7). 

Three members of the Son trinity; the Way, the 
Truth and the Life (John 14:6). 

Three members of the Spirit trinity; Life, Truth 
and Power (Rev. 11:11; John 14:16, 17, 26; Luke 
1:35, 24:49; Acts 2:4). 

Three things which shall not be in Heaven; Death, 
Sorrow (“crying” is but sorrow’s expression) and 
Pain (Rev. 21:4). 

Three divisions of the Tabernacle; the Court, the 
Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. 

Three pieces of furniture in the Holy Place; the 
Table of Shewbread, the Altar and the Candlestick. 

Three articles in the Ark of the Covenant; the 
Tables of the Law, the Rod that budded and the Pot 
of Manna. 

Three Resurrections; (a) immediately after the 
resurrection of Christ, (b) at the parousia, or draw- 
ing near, preceding the second advent and, (c) at the 


OF SAVING FAITH 19 


end of the Thousand Years (Mat. 27: 52, 53; 1 Thess. 
miaOe- Rey. 20: 12, 13): 

Three ascensions; Enoch, Elijah and Christ. 

Three receptions of the Holy Spirit; (a) on ful- 
filling the first requirements of faith, (b) by gift from 
Christ and, (c) by the filling for service (John 5: 24; 
John ZO: 21, 22; Acts 2: 2-4). 

Many of the three-groups in the Word suggest tri- 
unity’s component membership, as outlined in a previ- 
ous chapter, in a very striking manner. A few 
examples will suffice to show what is meant. 

Take, as our first example, the contents of the Ark 
of the Covenant (Heb. 9:4). What were they? (a) 
Aaron’s rod that budded; a miracle of life only, no 
other quality or characteristic being ascribed to the 
rod. (b) The tables of the Law, which contained the 
written words expressing God’s way of looking at 
sin—His attitude—showing the kind of God He is in 
respect of sin, and, as such, the manifestation of His 
spirit in the matter of sin. (c) A pot of manna, iden- 
tified by John 6 as a type of the body of Christ, “the 
true bread from heaven.” In these three articles thus 
cherished in the Ark of the Covenant we have in type 
the Life, the Spirit and the Body of Jesus Christ, the 
Embodied God. 

Take another example. In the Holy Place of the 
temple were three articles of furniture sacred to three 
uses; viz., 

(a) The table of shewbread, again the typical body 
of Christ; (b) the seven-branched candlestick, type 


20 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


of the sevenfold spirit of God; and (c) the golden 
altar, upon which, instead of a life, was offered up a 
sweet-smelling savour; but nevertheless, the symbol 
of a forfeited life, as were all altars. 

Again, taking an illustration from the New Testa- 
ment—and this is, perhaps, one of the most striking 
instances at hand—three times the Lord dealt with thé 
morally unclean in woman; and of all His revelations 
of the sweetness of Divine mercy these are among the 
most profound. There was one who came to Him 
as He sat at meat in the house of the Pharisee. She 
washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with 
the hairs of her head. The overwhelming emotion 
which impelled that poor soul into the glare of the 
lights and past the sneers of the bystanders to the feet 
of Jesus, there to pour out her very being in the throes 
of penitence, is the most striking feature of the narra- 
tive. The woman’s emotion, aside from the teaching 
of the Master, is its supreme thought. Emotion is ex- 
clusively an attribute of soul. It is the soul’s relation 
to the sin, in its repentance, that gives color to this 
whole story. (See Luke 7: 36-38.) | 

Now, notice the almost startling contrast in the 
case of the woman in the eighth of John taken in the 
act of adultery. See how insistent the narrative is 
upon this fact. See how perfectly calm she and all 
present are. She shows not in slightest degree the 
agony of soul so markedly emphasized in the first 
case, although she is to be stoned to death in conform- 
ity with the law of Moses. She neither weeps nor 


OF SAVING FAITH 21 


wails. The record is almost feeble in its calmness. 
Supreme emphasis is placed upon the body’s relation 
to the sin. 

(If testimony is admissible as to the integrity of 
this narrative as an inspired part of the Gospel of 
John, I respectfully submit that its place in the trinity 
of incidents now under consideration identifies it as 
an integral and harmonious part of the Spirit-given 
record. ) 

Again: from Galilee to the “coasts of Tyre and 
Sidon” is a matter of about fifty miles; and yet Jesus 
went all the way there and back—at least four weary 
days’ journey—to cast the unclean spirit out of a little 
girl. In this case, aside from the extreme importance 
of her mother’s experience in the matter, the striking 
thing is that there is no bodily guilt, no emotional ex- 
hibition. The child herself has no relation to the in- 
cident except to be the beneficiary of His mercy. It 
is an unclean spirit with which the Lord deals (Mark 
7: 24-30). 

‘Another striking example of suggestiveness is found 
in the “pearl of the parables.” In this chapter we find 
not three parables, but three in one, and that one a 
parable of the threefold work of Redeeming Grace. 
(See Luke 15.) 

The component membership of this truth-trinity 
consists of (a) the lost sheep, (b) the lost coin, and 
(c) the lost son. 

In the first division of the parable that which is lost 
is a living thing. The shepherd has lost a life. It is 


22 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


death that dogs the wanderer on the mountain. It is 
from death that the shepherd saves this lost sowl. This 
is a parable of the work of Redeeming Grace applied 
to the soul (life) and its application is to the sinner 
only. 

In the second part of the parable that which is lost 
is merely a piece of lifeless metal. It is of great 
value, but it is nothing more than a piece of insensate 
matter which is sought and found. This is a parable 
of the work of Redeeming Grace applied to the mate- 
rial body—a resurrection story. 

In the third part all that occurs from first to last 
in the experience of the younger brother accomplishes 
in him but one thing; a change of attitude. Attitude 
is the best other name there is for the human spirit. 
It is the spirit of sonship—not sonship—which was 
lost and is found, which was dead and is alive. This 
is a parable of Redeeming Grace applied to the spirit. 
Its application is to the wayward child of God and to 
him alone. 

Another triunity of striking importance, although at 
first glance not so easily discernible, is the Kingdom- 
trinity. We have (a) the Kingdom of God, (b) the 
Kingdom of Heaven, and (c) the Kingdom of David 
(millennial). The incident of the young ruler in Mat- 
thew 19: 16-28 reveals to us two members of this tri- 
unity’s constituency. The conversation brings out the 
distinction between the Kingdom of God and the King- 
dom of Heaven (a distinction which the parallel ac- 
counts do not bring out, naturally, because they do not 


OF SAVING FAITH 23 


present the Christ story from the Kingdom viewpoint 
as does Matthew). Jesus says, in effect, with great 
difficulty may a man go into the Kingdom of Heaven; 
and the difficulty in this case is chargeable to the pos- 
session of riches. As for the Kingdom of God, it is 
simply impossible for a rich man to enter—go into it. 
In fact, it is an easier task for a camel to go through 
the eye of a needle. This latter statement arouses 
exceeding amazement on the part of His hearers. They 
understand Him to be stating an impossibility. They 
know all about the little gate set in the larger one of 
the city through which a camel, bereft of its burden, 
might, with difficulty, pass. That happy little solution 
of the problem (advanced by the modern “angel of 
light” to minify the necessity of the new birth) never 
occurred to them, else they had not been so amazed. 
“Who then can be saved?” they cry. The answer is: 
“With man this is impossible’—with any man, rich 
or poor. Only by the act of the Father “who hath 
begotten us again unto a lively hope” can any man’s 
entrance into the life-relation to the Kingdom be ac- 
complished. In other words, the Kingdom of God is 
the realm of eternal, supernatural, divine LIFE. The 
new birth is the only door into it. It is the soul-rela- 
tion to the Kingdom—‘‘Ye must be born again.” But 
the Kingdom of Heaven may be entered by a man, al- 
though with difficulty. Heaven is the place where God 
rules with undisputed sway. Obedience to Him is its 
only atmosphere and attitude. It is hard for any man 
to live, unaided, in the spirit of submission to God’s 


24 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


will, especially if he be rich, but it can be done with 
greater or less sticcess. (Consider Nathaniel, Daniel, 
Elijah and most of the Old Testament saints, none of 
whom were in the Kingdom of God in their day, be- 
cause the Life had not yet been brought to light in 
Christ.) 


But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour 
Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life 
and immortality to light through the gospel: 

—2 Tim. 1: 10. 

The Kingdom of Heaven is the attitude relation to 
the kingdom. There are today, as ever, those in the 
Kingdom of Heaven who are not in the Kingdom of 
God, and may never be. There are sincere, earnest 
souls who would accept the atonement of Jesus Christ 
for their sins if they had an opportunity to do so, who, 
through ignorance of the way or false teaching have 
not seen the Light of Life. Such was the scribe in 
Mark 12: 32-34. Such was the native African woman 
encountered, traveling alone, by a party of mission- 
aries hundreds of miles from civilization who, in an- 
swer to their inquiries as to where she was going, 
replied, “I am going to the great sea to find the true 
God.” 

Good intentions, good thinking, good actions do not 
evidence the possession of the Divine Life, but they 
may indicate the attitude relation to the Kingdom 
which was what Jesus recognized in the scribe. 


The mother of a deaf and dumb child told me the 


OF SAVING FAITH 25 


following story: She had placed her daughter in the 
care of an institution for the higher education of deaf 
mutes and looked forward with joyful anticipation to 
the time when the little one, having learned the lip 
language, would be able to understand her when she 
told about the love of God in Christ Jesus. At last 
the time came and she began to tell the story she had 
waited so long to tell. Her surprise amounted almost 
to shock when the little one turned to her and smil- 
ingly said, “Why, Mamma, I always knew about God.” 

The millennial “kingdom of David” is simply the 
embodiment member of the Kingdom triunity. The 
“everlasting kingdom” of Daniel (Daniel 4:3) is the 
Kingdom LIFE and the Kingdom SPIRIT embodied 
on this earth in the converted Sons of Abraham, It 
is well to remember that the Jew is still God’s Man. 

These few instances of the triune groupings of 
thought, as given us in revelation, may suffice to make 
clear the meaning of the statement that the very man- 
ner in which the Plan of Salvation is revealed shows, 
in many cases, recognition of the component member- 
ship of triunity and the adaptation of that Plan to the 
threefold need of Man, the being whom God has pur- 
posed to save. 

It is not to be understood that a mere grouping of 
three constitutes a truth-trinity. This must consist of 
a unifying of three truths, the result of which is a 
distinct concept, as will be more particularly explained 
later. But a grouping of three, as above cited, at least 
suggests triunity, and in many cases does it in so 


26 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


striking a manner as to be very significant. Numerous 
instances of these adumbrations of triunity will come 
to the surface in the further consideration of our sub- 
ject, and many others may, as already suggested, occur 
to the reader. 

In the chapters that follow we shall make reference 
to a diagrammatic suggestion of triunity (see frontis- 
piece) for the purpose of helping the mind to visualize 
a broad view of the several truth-trinities with which 
we shall deal. Of these there are seven which must 
be considered, and these and their relation to each 
other may be suggestively represented by seven equi- 
lateral triangles, so arranged as to present to the eye 
a symbolic structure, showing the place occupied by 
each truth-trinity considered, as well as its relation to 
the several others equally involved. The name of each 
truth-trinity—its sum-total—will occupy the center of 
its triangle and the names of its three members will 
be displayed parallel with its several sides. 

Reference to the diagram will show that its base 
line has the designation, “Son of God.” That is to 
say the whole work of the Anointed, as well as the 
believer’s relation to that work, rests upon His 
Divinity. 

No article of religion which denies or ignores that 
Divinity can be acceptable to God, and no professor 
of any kind of religion who denies or ignores that fact 
has any “chance” whatever of salvation. There is no 
other foundation upon which a saving faith can rest. 
And, conversely, whatever his mistakes of belief, prac- 


OF SAVING FAITH 27 


tical or theoretical, may be, if he accepts the Deity of 
Jesus Christ he has at least met the first and funda- 
mental requirement of saving faith and there is hope 
for him. And, again, no matter how exemplary his 
practice or his profession, if he does not accept it there 
is no hope. 

And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain 
water: and the eunuch said, See here is water; what doth 
hinder me to be baptized? 

And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou 
mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ 
is the Son of God. —Acts 8: 36, 37. 

But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the 
Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life 
through his name. —John 20: 31. 


In like manner, as will be seen later, Christ’s rela- 
tion to the Plan as “Lamb of God” is the foundation 
upon which Redemption rests. It is the life of Jesus 
Christ, typified by the blood, which pays the price of 
freedom from the bondage and penalty of sin. 

As Son of Man, likewise, He becomes the founda- 
tion of Reconciliation. Himself the propitiation— 
“mercy seat’ or place where mercy is to be found— 
His humanity alone offers the possibility of seeing our- 
selves, by faith, in the act of paying the penalty of our 
own sins and thus satisfying the Law. The difficulty 
of identifying ourselves with the accepted substitute 
is that obstacle to faith which His humanity overcomes. 

As Son of God He is the Revealing One. 

As Lamb of God He is the Redeeming One. 

As Son of Man He is the Reconciling One. 


CHAPTER iit 
TRIUNITY 


For the invisible things of him from the creation of the 
world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
are made, even his eternal power and godhead; so that they 
were without excuse. Romans 1: 20. 
JANG of the passage above quoted 

might read thus: “For the invisible world, in- 
cluding even God’s eternal power and godhood, may 
be understood by that world which is clearly seen.” 

It seems evident that the teaching intended is that 
we are warranted in expecting to find in the world with 
which we are familiar an understandable reflection of 
God’s eternal power and godhood. 

With this thought in mind let us return at once to the 
consideration of our topic as suggested in Chapter I; 
viz. LRIUNITY. 

It is unfortunate that those who are responsible for 
the Church’s doctrinal concepts have never clarified 
the doctrine of the triunity of God, thus denying to 
the unbeliever one excuse for his unbelief. This doc- 
trine, as tacitly held by the great mass of Christian 
people, amounts to the statement that the three per- 
sons of the Divine Trinity make one person, This is 
an unthinkable proposition. It is equivalent to saying 
“three times one is one.” The correct statement is: 
“The three persons of the Divine Trinity make one 

28 


OF SAVING FAITH 29 


God,” for God is not only a person but the sum-total 
of three persons. 

Let us for the time being accept this as a true state- 
ment and see what it involves. 

We find, firstly, that God is the sum-total of three 
persons. These three persons are Father, Son and 
Holy Spirit. God is not Father alone, nor Son, nor 
Spirit alone, but all three unified in some way. 

Casting about for an illustration in ‘the things that 
are made,” let us consider a very simple illustration 
of three-in-oneness to be found in the equilateral tri- 
angle. Here we have three straight lines. They are 
perfectly thinkable and understandable severally; but 
when they are submitted to a law; viz., that the sec- 
ond line shall begin where the first ends and the third 
begin where the second ends and end where the first 
began, we have a triunity in the geometrical realm as 
perfect as need be for our present purpose. The tri- 
angle is not a straight line, but a unit, the sum total 
of three separately perfect straight lines, and demon- 
strates the above accepted statement of truth; viz., 
the three persons of the Divine Trinity, though sepa- 
rately demonstrable, make “one God.” 

Further, the triangle reveals the equal importance 
or value of each member of the triunity, for we find 
that, although greater than any one of its component 
members, it is nevertheless dependent for its existence 
equally upon the presence of all three. Take away 
any one of the three lines and the triangle ceases to 
exist. 


30 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


If now we were to presume to name one of these 
three lines “The Father,” another “The Son,” and the 
remaining one “The Holy Spirit,’ we would have a 
diagrammatic presentation of the thought, the triangle 
standing for the unification of the three in the “one 
God.” | 

Taking a step forward, another simple illustration 
from “‘the things that are made” may lead us further 
into an understanding of triunity. 

Our chain consisting of three links constitutes a 
mechanical triunity. In these three links we find a 
resemblance to the triangle in this; they constitute a 
chain because they, too, are subjected to a law of 
being; i.e., the three separate links become a chain 
because of the way in which they are related to each 
other. 

The first characteristic of triunity as found in the 
triangle we find here also; viz., the dependence of 
the triunity upon the presence equally of all three of 
its members: break away one link and the chain ceases 
to be, for we have then one link and a couple. 

Another characteristic of triunity is also discernible. 
As we handle the chain it makes no difference which 
link we grasp, we are grasping the chain. Using this 
fact as an illustration, we may contemplate either 
Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, we are contemplating 
God. 

But the chain presents to our view three striking 
qualities or possessions inherent, which might be said 
to be the component membership of its being. 


OF SAVING FAITH 31 


(1) It possesses substance. It may be made of 
iron, gold, silver, or any other substance of sufficient 
cohesive force to preserve its form and serve its pur- 
pose. We might give this component member of the 
chain-thought a name and call it “embodiment.” ‘That 
is to say, the chain’s creator materialized his thought 
in iron, silver, gold or what not. 


(2) Another component member of the chain’s 
being is the design according to which it is material- 
ized. A link differs greatly from a sphere or a cube. 
The design makes it possible for a link to encircle by 
its substance a portion of the substance of another 
link or more than one other. 


(3) And, thirdly, there exists in the substance of 
the link, no matter what that substance may be, a 
natural force. It is known as the attraction of cohe- 
sion. By it the molecules of the substance are bound 
and held together. That it is a force is apparent when 
we discover the degree of force which is necessary to 
rend them apart. 

These three qualities or possessions of the chain, 
considered in the abstract, we have designated in its 
component membership; viz., 


EMBODIMENT, 
DESIGN, 
FORCE. 


Let us refer to another of the “things that are 
made” for an illustration of this component member- 
ship in the concrete. A locomotive engine will serve 

3 


oe, THE PSYCHOLOGY 


our purpose, although it is not itself a triunity. As 
it stands upon the tracks, pulsing with pent-up power, 
it seems almost to be a living thing. Consider its 
mass. Iron, steel, brass, wood, and perhaps a dozen 
other substances combine to embody a beautiful and 
wonderful product of human skill and wisdom, Note 
the plan of its construction, that is to say, its design. 
It differs, so far as its embodiment is concerned, no 
wit from the stationary engine in a near-by boiler- 
house. Just such iron, steel and brass as is used to 
construct the one is used to construct the other; but 
in design the two are as wide apart, in one respect, as 
could well be; for while one is designed to move to 
and fro with great rapidity if need be, the other is 
designed to stand stolidly in its place and cause great 
wheels to revolve and numerous machines to operate. 
As we contemplate with admiration and wonder the 
mountain of substance before us in its symmetrical 
beauty, a begrimed little man in blue denim with an 
oil can in his hand climbs into the cab. A squeaky 
whistle toots once, twice. A lever is thrown, a throttle 
valve opened and the locomotive and its dozen Pull- 
mans glide smoothly and softly out of the train shed 
with steadily accelerated speed—FORCE. 

Triunity, then, in “the things that are made,” is not 
the mysterious blending of three similar things to make 
a single similar thing. The straight lines do not by 
union become one straight line. The links do not be- 
come one link, but something which is greater than 
any one of the three, or all of the three, although de- 


OF SAVING FAITH 33 


pendent upon the presence of all three for its exist- 
ence; viz., a chain. 

And this brings us to a simple but profound state- 
ment. All triunity, abstractly considered, is, in the 
last analysis, the sum-total of the unifying of embodi- 
ment, force and design or their equivalents. (See 
Chapter I.) 


CHAPTER a: 


TRIUNITY OF MAN 


And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray 
God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blame- 
less unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thess. 5: 23. 


(2 MAY be truly said that few passages in the Word 
of God are so charged with meaning as the above 
quotation. Its revelations are numerous, but the most 
striking, perhaps, is that of the triunity of Man. 

Much confusion of thought has resulted from the 
custom, which has very generally prevailed, of making 
no distinction between soul and spirit. Apparently in- 
different to the Word’s differentiation, men have gone 
on using the terms interchangeably, notwithstanding 
the Word never so uses them; for psuché (soul or 
life) is rarely if ever translated spirit, and pnewma 
(spirit) never soul or life. Some light is thrown on 
the subject when we consider that the word translated 
soul (psuché) is likewise rendered life. That is to 
say, soul and life are expressed by the same word in 
the language of the Word of God: for instance: 
“What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 
(psuché).” “Is not the life (psuché) more than 
meat?” Here the same word is used for life. 

See also Matthew 10:39, Mark 3:4, Luke 9: 24, 
John 10:11, and many others where the Greek word 
psuché is likewise rendered in the English by “life.” 

34 


OF SAVING FAITH 35 


It should be noted in passing that the Greek word 
psuché so translated soul or life has reference to the 
natural or animal life only, the supernatural life being 
expressed by an entirely different word, which fact 
will be dealt with later. 

Made in the “image of God,’ Man still clings to 
a residue of that glorious state of being. He is still 
a triune thing, according to the revelation of 1 Thessa- 
lonians 5:23 above quoted. 

Let us give thought, as briefly as may be, to this re- 
flection of the “image of God” .. . “spirit and soul 
and body.” 

One-third of his being is substantial. His body is 
composed of matter. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, iron, 
phosphorus, sulphur, soda, lime, silica and many 
others—in fact, the very elements which go to make 
up the substance of the dust from which he was taken, 
the air he breathes and the food he feeds upon are 
found as components of his body cells. Indeed, mak- 
ing allowance for the preponderance of the element 
carbon (which so differentiates the organic from the 
inorganic), his body is not so very unlike in composi- 
tion that of the locomotive which we contemplated in 
the previous chapter. It is organized matter adapted 
to his uses and competent to perform the functions 
of his being. 

These uses and functions are: 

(1) A habitat for soul, or life—a dwelling place— 
Paul’s “earthly house” (2 Cor. 5:1). 

(2) A means of manifestation. By its visible and 


36 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


tangible substance it locates the personality and iden- 
tifies the man. 

(3) An engine of his will. Without the substantial 
body the soul’s highest impulses and purposes are 
merely those of abject impotence. Soul and spirit 
without substantial embodiment are absolutely impo- 
tent to accomplish a single act of any kind. Such a 
duo-unity (soul and spirit) is in the Word called, 
sometimes, soul, and again spirit, but no act of ac- 
complishment is attributed to it. 

As already pointed out, soul and life (natural) in 
the original Greek are the same word. Man’s psuché 
is the seat of his emotions—literally out-movings—or 
feelings. To quote Scofield: “The soul is the seat 
of the affections, desires, and so of the emotions. ... 
The word translated soul in the Old Testament is the 
exact equivalent of the Greek word for soul (psuché), 
and the use of soul (nephesh) in the Old Testament 
is identical with the use of the word psuché in the 
New Testament.” 

If, for the time being, we use the alternative trans- 
lation “life” instead of the so generally misused and 
misunderstood “soul,” it will aid in arriving at the 
thought here sought to be conveyed; viz., that life is 
the driving force of the body. That is to say: the 
body is the material engine which the life endues with 
the power to execute and accomplish. We note its 
presence in the world of sentient things by the phe- 
nomenon of motion. When a thing naturally endued 
with the power of voluntary motion moves not, the 


OF SAVING FAITH 37 


first thought that presents itself to one’s mind is, it is 
dead, life has departed. Impalpable, imperceptible, 
mysterious, life baffles every attempt to describe it. 
That it is not a mew creation with each individual pos- 
sessor is apparent when we reflect that it is physically 
transmitted from father to offspring and that, thus 
transmitted, it is in the son identical in essence with 
the father’s life. If “Levi also who receiveth tithes, 
paid tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins 
of his father, when Melchisedec met him” (Heb. 7:9, 
10), then through all the generations of descent the 
life (soul) of Levi was the soul of Abraham and of 
all his forbears back to Adam. And for that matter 
it is the very soul of Adam that drives the man-engine 
today as it drove it then. 

Life, then, is Man’s unchanged and unchangeable 
heritage from the beginning. 

May we not then, for the sake of the argument, give 
Life a new name? Because it is that which actuates 
the body which it indwells, it is like the pressure of 
the pent-up steam which drives the piston and turns 
the great wheels of the locomotive, It is a force. 

When we come to the consideration of the third 
member of the human trinity we are face to face with 
the necessity of antagonizing an age-old popular mis- 
conception as to the meaning of the term “spirit.” 
That popular misconception thinks of spirit as a misty, 
diaphanous apparition of a human form whose prin- 
cipal occupation may be to wait upon the wishes of 
mumbling mediums to the great delight of phenome- 


38 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


nally wise “psychic researchers”; or the essence of 
the departed being whether demonstrative or not; or, 
again, in some sense the subconscious ego of being 
whose activities play all kinds of pranks upon the con- 
scious self. The fact that common parlance uses the 
word frequently in-exactly the right sense seems to 
have had no bearing upon the “popular misconcep- 
tion.” We have no doubt we will be perfectly under- 
stood when we use such phrases as “a man of noble 
spirit’—“a woman of gentle spirit’—‘“a spirited 
horse’ —‘‘a mean-spirited fellow.” We are referring, 
in thus speaking, to a certain differentiating attribute 
which is notable as far as that man, or woman, or 
horse, is concerned. What do we expect of a “man 
of noble spirit” but noble deeds, noble thoughts, noble 
words? What do we expect of a “mean-spirited 
fellow’? Not nobility in word or deed, but just the 
opposite. In short, the noble spirit is a noble char- 
acter, the mean spirit a mean character: and we may 
reasonably jump to the conclusion that spirit may also 
be translated “character.” 

But what is character? It is trite to say “no two 
persons are alike.’ But that in which one person 
differs from another is, most frequently, his “way of 
looking at things,” with all that the term implies. For 
instance, one person may be extravagantly fond of 
flowers; another, in comparison, quite indifferent to 
them. This difference between the two in their atti- 
tude toward flowers would be likely, in some degree, 
to characterize those persons in all their attitude to- 


OF SAVING FAITH 39 


ward men and things, because fondness for flowers is 
usually accompanied by other peculiarities of char- 
acter not generally possessed by a person indifferent to 
such things. If this be true, then a man’s character 
might be said to be his attitude (in the broadest sense 
of the word). Then if spirit is character and char- 
acter is attitude, or one’s way of looking at things, 
then spirit 1s attitude. 

But, furthermore, your attitude—your way of look- 
ing at things, is the kind of person you are. It cor- 
responds exactly to that element in the construction of 
the locomotive which makes it differ from the station- 
ary engine; viz., its DESIGN. 

But the question will arise, By what authority do 
you thus denude spirit of its essential personality? If 
spirit is merely one’s attitude, or way of looking at 
things, or character, what becomes of the Scriptural 
revelation of personality as an attribute of the Holy 
Spirit ? 

The sum-total of body, soul and spirit is you. You 
are the person, or, say, you have the attribute of per- 
sonality. But your spirit is you quite as much as either 
your soul or your body. Any one of the three links 
is as much chain as any other; therefore, spirit is 
possessed of personality quite as much as body or soul. 
You speak of Shakespeare when you mean the works 
of Shakespeare, and you know you will be understood. 

As three links make a chain and the chain ceases 
to exist if it suffers the loss of one of its links, so the 
sum-total of the human trinity, the person, ceases to 


40 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


be on the loss of one of its members; e.g., soul and 
body without spirit is not (legally) a person, but an 
imbecile. (Reason or mind is an attribute of spirit 
and, in fact, mind is sometimes, in the Word, used 
for spirit, or to express an attitude or purpose.) 

Soul and spirit without body is not a person, but a 
wraith or ghost—the duo-unity which continues to 
exist in the “place of departed spirits” until that place 
gives up its dead. (See Rev. 20: 13.) 

Body without soul or spirit is not a person but a 
corpse. 

If any two men could be found who would think 
alike, see alike (intellectually speaking), feel alike, 
love alike and hate alike, they would have the same 
spirit because these resemblances would give them the 
‘ same attitude toward their environment. 

If I could succeed in influencing some other man 
to have exactly the same attitude toward his environ- 
ment that I have toward it, I would succeed in giving 
him my spirit. 

If, then, God would impart to me His Holy Spirit 
—by which is here meant the Holy Spirit of Truth— 
the operation which must be performed is that God 
must cause me, in some way, to think as He thinks, 
love as He loves, hate as He hates; to have, in short, 
the same attitude toward my environment, natural and 
supernatural, that He has. The Spirit of God—still 
limiting the term to the Spirit of Truth—is God’s 
attitude, and to have the Holy Spirit is to have the 
Holy attitude. 


CHAPTER V 


THE SUM-TOTAL 


Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy 
strength. . . . Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Mark 
Lasiusto lL 


HE above passage is understood and acknowl- 

edged to be the highest and most authoritative 
presentation of the Divine Will in the form of a com- 
mandment. 

We can recognize in it the three component mem- 
bers of the Human Trinity; viz., soul, mind (synony- 
mous with spirit when it is used to designate not the 
intellect but the purpose or intent of the person) and 
strength (or body, inasmuch as bodily activity is here 
referred to, Greek ischus; force or strength). 

A paraphrase might be rendered thus: ‘“Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all 
thy soul and with all thy spirit and with all thy body,” 
and the rendering would be quite as true to the intent 
of the original as the accepted rendering. 

The point to be considered here is the fact that, in 
addition to the component membership of the human 
trinity already referred to, we have a fourth member 
—‘thy heart.” 

“Heart” in this connection is an expression which 
we tolerate in our thinking for lack of a better. It 

41 


42 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


does not have reference to the sturdy little bunch of 
muscle about the size of one’s fist located nearly in 
the center of the thorax, which performs such prodi- 
gies of labor to keep the life-blood pulsing, but to 
something profoundly important as a part of our- 
selves. So inadequate is the expression that, in the 
endeavor to convey the thought which it is supposed 
to present, we often have recourse to such expressions 
as “heart of hearts,” “depths of my heart,” etc. In 
fact, “heart” in our language stands for J, myself— 
EKGO—the sum-total of body, soul and spirit, just as 
“chain” stands for the sum-total of the three links. 
And just as, in the case of the chain, the sum-total has 
attributes which may and must be considered apart 
from its component membership, the EGO, I, myself, 
exhibits one important attribute not possessed by either 
body, soul or spirit separately considered; this is the 
power of will. Neither spirit, soul nor body wills to 
do. The “seat of the emotions” furnishes the motive 
power, just as the pent-up energy of the steam in the 
boiler drives the piston and turns the crank, but it is 
not the steam that wills to do; no more does the sub- 
stantial embodiment of steel and iron; no more does 
the design. No, it is the grimy little man in blue 
denim who throws the reverse and opens the throttle. 
He is the engine’s will to move—the Ego of the thing. 

It is not strange that heart is first mentioned in the 
greatest of all the commandments, for it is entirely 
possible to love, in the broad sense of the word, with 
spirit, with soul and with body, any or all, and yet 


OF SAVING FAITH 43 


not with the Ego, whose very breath is self-will—love- 
lessness. This is the thought of Matthew 15:8, “This 
people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and 
honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far 
from me.” But where the will has surrendered to the 
thraldom of love all of the rest of the being is led 
captive. We all know this. So heart, rightly, has first 
place in the great commandment. 

Because, then, the heart alone exercises the power 
of will, the heart (Ego) is the arbiter of faith. The 
soul may feel to believe, the spirit yield to a sense of 
conviction, and the body may even perform acts ‘“‘meet 
for repentance,’ but unless the heart says, “I will!” 
all avail nothing. “I will!” is the synonym of faith. 
The prodigal’s victory of faith was not in his father’s 
arms, but back in the hog pasture where he cried, “I 
will arise and go to my father.” 

“With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” 

“My son give me thine heart.” 

The catastrophies of Christian experience which 
have so shocked the believer and elated the skeptic have 
generally, if not always, been due to failure on the 
part of the unfortunate to live the positwe life of “I 
will.” 

Trust is a beautiful accomplishment in the Chrts- 
tian’s development, but trust is not faith. Both have 
their divinely appointed uses, both have their victories 
and enter largely into the believer’s growth in grace, 
but there is a great difference between them. It 1s 
brought out in Exodus 14: 13-15. “Stand still and see 


AA THE PSYCHOLOGY 


the salvation of the Lord” were the words of Moses 
to the children of Israel as they trembled between the 
Red Sea before them and the hosts of Egypt behind 
them. “Stand still’—that is trust. But that was not 
God’s thought for His people that day. What He 
wanted was the exercise of positive faith. “Speak to 
the children of Israel that they go forward,” was His 
word to Moses. ‘Trust stands still. Trust waits to 
see, Faith goes forward. Trust says, “I believe’; 
faith says, “I will.” 

In the strife with principalities and powers the 
humblest believer’s “I will’ of faith is irresistible. 
The enemy has no armor which it cannot pierce, no 
weapon which it cannot foil. “By faith Abraham”’— 
“By faith Isaac’—“By faith Joseph’—“By faith 
Moses” (Heb. 11: 1-39). And faith is Ego’s supreme 
prerogative, and Ego’s alone. 


CHAPTER VI 


IN THE DAY THAT THEY ATE THEREOF 

In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. 
Genesis 2:17. 

I WELL remember years ago being told by a Chris- 

tian gentleman, “There are a great many things in 
the Bible which are to be taken with allowance; for 
instance, when God said in the garden, ‘In the day that 
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,’ He must 
have meant something else, for they did not die.” The 
speaker but voiced the question which has occurred, 
perhaps, to every reader of that portentous record. 
Did they die in that day, or did they not? 

A critical examination of the language of the orig- 
inal record shows that a literal translation of the 
Hebrew “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of 
life and man became a living soul” should read “and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of two lives, 
[Pember] and man became a living life,” the Hebrew 
word for life in the first instance being in the dual 
form, signifying two, no more, no less. 

There are two lives revealed in the Word, just as 
there are two deaths; the heavenly, divine, immortal 
or supernatural life (always expressed in the Greek 
by the word zoé), and the animal, natural or human 
life (Greek, psuché). If two lives were breathed into 
Adam at his creation it must have been these two lives. 
The text of the narrative warrants this conclusion. 

45 


46 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


Herbert Spencer’s definition of a perfect life; i.e., 
“perfect correspondence with a perfect environment,” 
in the last analysis resolves itself into the simple for- 
mula: correspondence with environment as a defini- 
tion of life. That is to say, if you are alive you 
respond, or adapt yourself, to what is going on around 
you. If you see light it is because you are alive to 
the light. If you hear sound, you are alive to sound. 
In short the degree in which you know, or respond to, 
the phenomena of the natural world about you meas- 
ures your degree of natural life; and the degree in 
which you fail to respond measures your degree of 
death or separation. And when you can neither hear, 
see, taste, smell, feel nor breathe, you are usually 
ready for the undertaker. 

The analogy is close in the spiritual realm. To the 
degree in which you “know” (or respond to) the 
phenomena of the spiritual world you are spiritually 
alive. “For this is life eternal, that they might know 
thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou 
hast sent” (John 17:3). 

Now, we find on consideration of the record in 
Genesis 2 and 3, that the new man responded to both 
environments. He not only lived, moved and had his 
being in the natural realm, as do we, but he walked 
and talked with God, as we do not. He was the first 
“Son of God,” possessed of the supernatural or divine 
essence of being (zoé) as well as the human or animal 
responsiveness to the natural things about him 
(psuché), by the in-breathing of God. 


OF SAVING FAITH 47 


Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, 

which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God. 
—Luke 3: 38. 

In this condition of duality of life Adam’s sover- 
eignty was complete, with one exception. He was for- 
bidden to eat of one certain tree in the garden. Only 
one test was to be made. It was a test of his loyalty 
to his creator and friend. He failed. With the act 
of disobedience came the immediate severance of his 
relation to the spiritual world with which he had been 
in such perfect correspondence. In the day that he 
ate thereof he was separated from God—separation is 
death. He died to God, the Spirit of Life, the Spirit 
of Truth and the Spirit of Power. Spiritual death 
then and there passed upon him and in him “upon all 
men.” From that day God has been the Father of a 
race of spiritually dead sons. 

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and 
death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all 


have sinned. —Rom, 5:12. 
And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and 
sins. —FEjph. 2:1. 


That specious sophistry which has been so empha- 
sized these latter days concerning the Fatherhood of 
God and the Brotherhood of Man, rests upon the 
falsity of a half-truth. The Fatherhood of God is 
Scripturally established. Jesus taught it. But the as- 
sumption that because God is Man’s father, and “God 
is spirit,’ Man, therefore, must be spiritually God’s 


son is Scripturally refuted. Spiritual death ends spir- 
4 


48 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


itual sonship, just as natural death ends natural son- 
ship. For sonship is not only a fact, it is a relation 
to be sustained if it is to exist. Man died to that re- 
lation in the ‘day that he ate thereof. 

The first penalty of sin, therefore, was complete 
separation from the spiritual environment, threefold 
in its effect; for in that day Man became “flesh’—a 
mere natural triunity. 

And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one 
of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his 
hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for 
ever. 

Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of 
Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. 

So he drove out the man: and he placed at the east of the 
garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned 
every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. 

—Gen, 3: 22-24. 

And this it was which made it necessary that he 
should be restored to correspondence with the spir- 
itual environment (spiritual life) before his Divine 
Saviour could even begin to deliver him from the con- 
sequences of his disobedience. Therefore ‘Ye must 
be born again.” 

But that was not all that took place that day. Not 
only did spiritual death smite him, but natural death 
marked him for a separation quite as complete from 
his natural environment as the first separation from 
the spiritual environment. Because his life was dual, 
both spiritual and natural, his death must be dual. 
Man now comes into the world “dead in trespasses and 


OF SAVING FAITH 49 


sins” spiritually. His separation from the natural en- 
vironment begins with the body’s dissolution, while 
the natural life (psuché) and the natural spirit 
(pneuma) continue to exist (that is why what we call 
death is so often spoken of in the Word as “‘sleep’’), 
a duo-unity in the “place of departed spirits,’ there 
to await the day of the Great White Throne and the 
resurrection of the hosts of the unregenerate; that 
day when “death and hell” shall give up their dead 
and the sea shall give up its dead, and the dead, great 
and small, shall stand before that throne and the awful 
tragedy of the “second death” shall fulfill the sentence 
of the garden. 

The first death and the second death are equally in- 
volved in the garden catastrophe, and it follows in- 
evitably that if Man is to be rescued from the conse- 
quences of his wilfulness, the Father of Love must 
take upon Himself the great task of saving him from 
the penalty of a dual death, partly in the past, partly 
in the future. 

This, the scope of the Plan of Salvation, will, when 
it is accomplished, restore to God’s highest creation all 
that was his in fact and potentially before he fell from 
his high estate. 

More particularly, the scope of the Plan must, of 
necessity, comprehend the following: 

Firstly—a work of grace which shall restore the 
man to correspondence with his spiritual environment, 
from which he is now absolutely separated by the 
spiritual death of the garden. This can be accom- 


50 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


plished by one process only. The antithesis of spir- 
itual death is spiritual life. Entry into that life, even 
as the entry into natural life, is by birth. “Except a 
man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot 
enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5; 5:24). 
This is the “born again” birth; the bestowal of the 
Divine Spirit of Life as a gift of grace. 

Secondly,—a work of grace which shall operate to 
keep the new soul (zoé) thus bestowed in a state of 
spiritual growth, ever developing new and more ad- 
vanced responsiveness to its new environment; for 
life’in any sphere cannot cease to function unless it 
be to die. This is the “more abundantly” life. 

I am come that they might have life, and that they might 
have it more abundantly. —John 10: 10. 
This enlightening, educating, purifying, edifying experi- 
ence accomplished under the guidance of the Spirit of 
Truth, changing the believer’s point of view and, con- 
sequently, his attitude, and, therefore, his spirit toward 
God, toward men, and toward things is an experience 
of grace. 

Thirdly,—a work of grace which shall perpetuate 
for all eternity this new being’s new life and new at- 
titude by bestowing upon him a new habitat, a new 
engine of will, adequate to meet all of his require- 
ments in a world of supernatural forces and divinely 
ordained activities. This is the “house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:1)—the 
spiritual body bestowed by a miracle of grace—the 
resurrection. 





OF SAVING FAITH 51 


The fact that salvation is thus a threefold work of 
Grace affords us a viewpoint from which to contem- 
plate its laws and phenomena in an orderly manner, 
and, with diagrammatic aid, even to visualize, as it 
were, its outstanding truths. 

It is, then, to a thoughtful, unprejudiced, tolerant 
consideration of the modus operandi of this threefold 
undertaking of Divine Grace that the reader is humbly 
and hopefully invited. 


te 


CHAPTER VII 
THE ANOINTED 


For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which 
is Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 3:11. 


UR first view of “the Anointed” presents Him 
to us as “the seed of the woman.” 


And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and be- 
tween thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and 
thou shalt bruise his heel. —Gen, 3:15. 


Then through succeeding and progressive revela- 
tions we have Him presented as: 

(a) Prophet, Priest and King, a group of official 
titles. 


I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, 
like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he 
shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. 

—Deut. 8: 18. 


And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude 
of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest, 

For he testifieth, Thou art a priest for ever after the order 
of Melchisedec. —Heb, 7:15, 17. 


I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of 
man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient 
of days, and they brought him near before him. 

And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a king- 
dom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: 
his dominion ts an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass 
away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. 

—Dan. 7:13, 14, 


52 


OF SAVING FAITH 53 


(b) “Son of Man,” “Son of God,” and “Lamb of 
God,” a group of designations indicating His func- 
tional relation to the Plan. 

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost 
shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall over- 
shadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be 
born of thee shall be called the Son of God. —Luke 1:35. 

And he said unto them, that the Son of man is Lord also 
of the sabbath. —Luke 6:5. 


The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, 
Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
World. —John 1:29. 

ioe ie wvays. the ‘Trithovand. “the Lite a 
group expressing His spiritual activities throughout 
the operation of the Plan. 

Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: 
no man cometh unto the Father but by me, —John 14:6. 

It may be noticed that these various designations 
of the Messiah are not only given to us in groups of 
three, but each group in its membership bears close 
similarity to the other groups; that is to say, it is not 
hard to identify the ‘““Prophet” of the first group with 
the “Son of God” of the second and “the Truth” of 
the third. 


While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed 
them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This 
is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. 


—Mat. 17:5. 
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God. —John 1:1. 


Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. 
—John 17:17. 


54 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


In like manner the ‘‘Priest” of the first, the “Lamb 
of God” of the second, and “the Life” of the third 
group express very closely by the manner in which 
they are used, the same relation to the Plan. 


But Christ being come a high priest of good things to come, 
by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, 
that is to say, not of this building; 

Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own 
blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained 
eternal redemption for us. 

For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a 
heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of 
the flesh; 

‘How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the 
eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your 
conscience from dead works to serve the living God? 

—Heb. 9: 11-14. 

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest 
by the blood of Jesus, 

By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, 
through the vail, that is to say, his flesh: —Heb. 10: 19, 20. 


The same is true of “King,” “Son of Man,” and 
“the Way.” 


And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye 
which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son 
of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit 
upon, twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 

. —Mat. 19: 28. 

Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell 
that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treas- 
ure in heaven: and come and follow me. —Mat. 19:21. 


As “Prophet” His office was to speak for the Father, 
representing Him and delivering His message to Man, 


OF SAVING FAITH 55 


which work might have been done, as previously, by 
the simple ‘thus saith the Lord” of a human mouth- 
piece, but as “Son of God’ His function was to reveal 
the Divine Will as well as to announce it, and thereby 
bring a true concept of God within the reach of Man’s 
apprehension (the fundamental necessity of the Divine 
undertaking), while, at the same time, He spoke for 
God as a prophet. The inadequacy of all previous 
prophetic utterance may have been due to the lack of 
this functional relation on the part of the human 
mouthpiece. 

But not only did He speak the words given Him by 
the Father and reveal by miracle and parable the love 
of the Father to those privileged to witness them. 
Throughout all time, as “the Truth’s” incarnation, 
through the Holy Spirit He appeals to the hearts of 
men in behalf of the Lover of Souls. 

I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear 
them now. 

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide 
you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but 
whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will 
shew you things to come. 

He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall 
shew it unto you. 

All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, 
that he shall take of mine, and shall shew i# unto you. 

A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little 
while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father. 

—John 16: 12-16. 


Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God 


56 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye 
reconciled to God. —2, Cor. 5520: 

Most prominent, perhaps, of the three groups of 
titles by which He is known is the functional group, 
“Son of Man,” “Son of God,” ‘Lamb of God.” 

These designations imply three different kinds of 
work which the ‘Anointed’ must perform; and the 
record given us in the synoptic Gospels shows how 
carefully He differentiated them. 

From the beginning of His ministry until the gather- 
ing in the upper chamber (John 13-17) His work as 
Son of God, Prophet, and Truth, was to complete a 
revelation of the Father such as had never before been 
made, and has never since been augmented. He spoke 
the Father’s words. He lived the love-life, going about 
doing good. He testified always of the Father. 

But there came a time when that work was com- 
pleted and, turning his eyes heavenward, He said, “T 
have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. 
. . . I have manifested thy name to the men which 
thou gavest me out of the world” (John 17:4, 6). 

From that day He testified no more of the Father. 
He no longer went about doing good. He entered upon 
an entirely different and a new work, the priestly sac- 
rificial work of the “Lamb of God.” 

When He left that upper room for the garden it 
was to assume His function as the meek, unresisting 
sin-bearer who “opened not his mouth.” As Priest 
He was to offer, as the priest offers upon the altar, a 
life substitute for the life of the race—His own life; 


OF SAVING FAITH Y/ 


and with it to enter the Holy of Holies in behalf of 
Man, as did the typical high priest once a year, thus 
becoming Himself both the priest and the offering. 

Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my 
life, that I might take it again. 


No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I 
have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. 
This commandment have I received of my Father. 

—John 10:17, 18. 

For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with 
hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven it- 
self, now to appear in the presence of God for us: nor yet that 
he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into 
the holy place every year with blood of others ... but now 
once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin 
by the sacrifice of himself. —Heb. 9: 24-26. 


His earthly work as priest was of short duration. 


It was only a few hours before, crying with a loud 
voice, He announced, “It is finished!” (John 19: 30). 


As already suggested, this was the earthly work of 
the “Lamb of God.” His heavenly high-priestly work 
had not yet begun. 


His third functional relation to the Plan of Salva- 
tion has never been assumed. As ‘Son of Man,” the 
earthly king David’s greater son He has yet to come. 

Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. 

I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, 
Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. 

Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine in- 
heritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy pos- 
session. 


58 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash 
them in pieces like a potters vessel. —Psalm 2: 6-9. 


I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of 
man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the Ancient 
of days, and they brought him near before him. 


And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a king- 
dom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: 
his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass 
away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. 

—Dan. 7:13, 14. 

Even more striking than His scrupulous exactness 
in the fulfillment of the prophecies which pertained to 
His humiliation and sacrifice, was His careful avoid- 
ance at His first coming of the fulfillment of any 
prophecy which in any way pertained to His function 
as Son of Man—the kingly function—and to His sec- 
ond coming. Note: 

(1) His refusal to pass judgment (a kingly func- 
tion) upon the woman taken in adultery (John 8). 

(2) His refusal to accept political leadership when 
they brought Him the penny with the cunningly de- 
vised query as to tribute. Political leadership was the 
king’s martial function (Luke 20: 21-25). 

(3) His refusal to adjudicate the case of the young 
man robbed of his inheritance (Luke 12: 13-14). This 
was the king’s judicial obligation. 

(4) The three temptations in the wilderness were 
each a profoundly shrewd attempt to seduce Him into 
the fulfillment of a prophecy pertaining to His Son 
of Man, or glory, advent, and thus by assuming the 
glory before the humiliation, thwart the Father’s Plan 


OF SAVING FAITH 59 


and make the Church and salvation from sin forever 
impossible. They were especially significant of the 
Satanic purpose and of His own sublime devotion to 
His Father’s will. 

The first temptation; viz., to set aside the garden 
curse and satisfy His hunger by a miracle, would have 
been a direct defiance of His Father’s word as re- 
corded in Gen. 3:17, 19. 


And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto 
the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I 
commanded thee, say, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the 
ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the 
days of thy life; 

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou re- 
turn unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for 
dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. 

—Gen. 3:17, 19. 

And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the 
Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. 

—Mat. 4: 3. 


The second temptation was even more astute: 

Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth 
him on a pinnacle of the temple, 

And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself 
down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge con- 
cerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest 
at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. 

—Mat. 4:5, 6. 


The prophecy which He was thus tempted to ful- 
fill involved the manner of His second advent: 


And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of 
these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of 
his saints. —Jude 14. 


60 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


And to you who are troubled, rest with us; when the Lord 
Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. 
—2 Thess. 1:7. 


But the third temptation was the most subtle of all; 
a suggestion that He might easily avoid the cross by 
accepting the crown which, in fact, was His by inherent 
right and prophetic promise: 

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high moun- 
tain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the 
glory of them; 


And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if 
thou wilt fall down and worship me. —Mat. 4:8, 9. 


(5) But especially consider His Scripture reading 
at Nazareth and His answer to the messengers sent 
by the Baptist, and it will be observed that the reply 
to John’s query was a commentary upon His mystify- 
ing treatment of the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah. That 
part of the prophecy which He read was as follows: 


And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: 
and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the 
sabbath day, and stood up for to read. 

And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet 
Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place 
where it was written, 

The Spirit of the Lord és upon me, because he hath anointed 
me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal 
the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and 
recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are 
bruised, 

To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 

—Luke 4: 16-19. 


When He had read thus much of the prophecy, 


OF SAVING FAITH 61 


which referred to His Divine, love-revealing work, He 
closed the book and sat down, saying, “Now is this 
Scripture fulfilled in your ears.” 


That portion of the prophetic utterance which he 
did not read was as follows: 


. and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all 
that mourn; 

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them 
beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment 
of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called 
Trees of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that he 
might be glorified. 

And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the 
former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the 
desolations of many generations. 

And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the 
sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen and your vine- 
dressers. 

But ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord: men shall 
call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of 


the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. 
—Isa. 61: 2-6. 


What the messengers of John saw and were to con- 
sider the answer to their query was almost a literal 
fulfillment of the portion of the Scripture which He 
read, but not that portion which He did not read. 

And John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to 


Jesus, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for 
another ?. 

When the men were come unto him, they said, John Baptist 
hath sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come? 
or look we for another? 


62 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities 
and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were 
blind he gave sight. 

Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and 
tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the 
blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, 
the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. 

And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. 

—Luke 7: 19-23. 


jt enti _— ee at | ~ 


CHAPTER VIII 
REDEMPTION 


The First Work of Grace For the Sinner 


Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own 
blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained 
eternal redemption for us. Hebrews 9: 12. 


E HAVE now to consider the first work of 

Grace for the dead and lost son of God, whom 
God is undertaking to save from the penalty of his 
sin. This is a preliminary or preparatory work, the 
object and scope of which is to provide for the great 
deliverance which is to follow. It does not save, it 
makes salvation possible. 

This was the “Lamb of God” work in which as a 
substitute for Man the anointed Man takes His place 
in the awful tragedy of Law-fulfillment, for not one 
jot or one tittle may pass until all be fulfilled. 

The supreme moment of spiritual testing of our 
Substitute was not in the wilderness, but in the garden 
where, before His greatly amazed soul, was unveiled 
the unspeakable agony which the Father, in mercy, 
had withheld until that hour—ithe abandonment of His 
Son to the separation of Sin. The anticipation of the 
physical suffering of the Cross, terrible as it was, must 
have been completely lost in the consternation which 
came with the discovery that, in order to fulfill the 

63 
5 


64 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


will of the Father and perfect His own atoning work, 
He must Himself suffer not only the rending apart of 
spirit, soul and body in what we call death, but He 
must suffer the spiritual condition of the sinner—be 
“made sin for us” by dying also the spiritual death 
which would accomplish in Him absolute and complete 
separation from the Father. 

Nothing could have been more terrible to Him than 
this. The withdrawal of Indwelling Love, the cloud- 
ing of that adored face upon which the eyes of His 
pure soul had never ceased to feast, must have been 
to Him the acme of agony. No wonder we hear the 
startled cry, “Father! If it be possible let this cup 
pass from me!” 

Someone has expressed the thought in the following 
lines: 

Not the crazed rabble’s hate-engendered sneers, 
Not the far-distant, trembling women’s tears, 
Not the nail’s piercing nor the grave’s black fears 
Filled full the awfullest moment of that day. 
But in the cloud of sins that made His night 
Was the heart-breaking horror of the sight 

Of Infinite Love—His life—-His soul’s delight 
One moment, in Sin’s separation, turned away. 

We have already found that the first effect of sin 
was the intrusion of death into God’s Plan. In the 
day that they ate thereof death passed upon them and 
upon all men—the first or spiritual separation from 
God the Spirit of Life, God the Spirit of Truth and 
God the Spirit of Power—the first death trinity. This 
was the condition into which the whole race was 


OF SAVING FAITH 65 


plunged by the single act of the first pair; for spir- 
itually dead parents could not transmit spiritual life 
to their offspring any more than the corrupt tree could 
bring forth good fruit. As one brought death upon 
the many, one shall likewise bring deliverance to the 
many, 

But not as the offence, so also is the free gift: for if 
through the offence of one many be dead, much more the 
grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, 
Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. 

And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the 
judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of 
many offences unto justification, —Romans 5:15, 16. 

We found death of the natural body; i.e., dissolu- 
tion of the material embodiment of the man, to be 
next in order as the first member of the second trinity 
of death, whose final consummation, at the judgment 
of the Great White Throne, finally and eternally sepa- 
rates the Man-unsaved from his Maker. 

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is 
the second death. 

And whosoever was not found written in the book of life 
was cast into the lake of fire. —Rev. 20: 14, 15. 

The scope of Redemption, then, as a work of Grace 
performed for the lost Man provides: 

(1) For the complete nullification of Sin’s claim 
upon him; that is to say, provides for his escape from 
the condition of spiritual death (Paul’s “so great 
death”) in which the Plan finds him. 


Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: 
in whom we trust that he will yet deliver ws ;—2 Cor. 1: 10. 


66 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own 
blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained 
eternal redemption for us. —Heb. 9: 12. 

(2) Makes it possible that bodily death shall be a 
blessing rather than a curse, a victory rather than a 
defeat, and,— 

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? 

The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. 

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through 
our Lord Jesus Christ. —1 Cor. 15: 55-57. 


(3) Provides a substitute who, for him, has passed 
through and experienced in his place the soul-death, 
thus paying the suspended penalty and perfecting, for 
the Man, the work of fulfilling “the law of sin and 
death” and setting him free therefrom. 

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made 
me free from the law of sin and death. —Romans 8:2. 

Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new 
lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is 
sacrificed for us: —1 Cor. 5:7. 

Three lambs and three sacrifices were required to 
typify, in the Old Testament, this threefold redemp- 
tion work; and Christ, when He entered upon His 
labor of love must, first of all, fulfill these three types. 

Exodus twelve gives us the word of God establish- 
ing the first type, the Passover Lamb. There are sev- 
eral things to be noted about this first type and its 
establishment which are significant. 


I. It was given without any reference to the Law. 
That is to say, Sin, as a transgression of the Law, was 


OF SAVING FAITH 67 


not involved in the offering of the passover Lamb, for 
there was no Law, and “where there is no law there 
is no imputation of sin.” 

For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not im- 
puted when there is no law. —Romans 5: 13. 

II. It was a sacrifice for the whole people and, 
therefore, because Israel was the only people with 
whom God was at that time dispensationally dealing, 
typically for the whole world. 

III. It was a substitutional sacrifice; a life was of- 
fered up in substitution for the life of the first-born. 
The judgment upon the land of Egypt did not except 
Israel. All the first-born of the land were under that 
decree. 

And Moses said, Thus saith the Lord, About midnight will 
I go out into the midst of Egypt: 

And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from 
the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even 
unto the firstborn of the maid-servant that is behind the mill; 
and all the firstborn of beasts. 

And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of 
Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any 
more. —Ex. 11: 4-6. 

IV. It was protective in its nature. Projected into 
the future, it delivered from an impending catas- 
trophe—some great calamity about to befall—death. 

In brief this typical sacrifice had no relation to sims 
at all, but was by God ordained as a substitutional 
method by which Israel might be delivered from the 
impending disaster by faith—faith enough to obey— 
without vitiating the terms of the original decree. 


68 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


The other two types are to be found in the sixteenth 
chapter of Leviticus. 


Here we have, first, the lamb (or kid) upon which 
“the Lord’s lot fell’? destined to give up His life in 
atonement for the sins of the people. 

Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for 
the people, and bring his blood within the vail, and do with that 
blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it 
upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat—Lev. 16: 15. 


He was the sins-atoning lamb whose blood was to 
be taken by the high priest into the Holy of Holies 
once a year and sprinkled upon the Mercy Seat, as 
typifying the blood of Jesus Christ with which He was 
to enter “once for all,” the Heavenly Holy Place, there 
to “make intercessions” for His saved ones. By His 
blood atonement was to be made. 

For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with 


hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, 
now to appear in the presence of God for us: 

Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest 
entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; 

For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of 
the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he ap- 
peared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 

—Heb. 9: 24. 

Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that 
come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make inter- 
cession for them. —Heb. 7:25. 


Atonement not “‘at-one-ment.” That pretty little play 
upon words, unfortunately, does not express the truth. 


OF SAVING FAITH 69 


The atoning work of Jesus Christ is a work performed 
for all men for all time. 


But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for 
ever, sat down on the right hand of God; —Romans 10: 12. 


And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours 
only, but also for the sins of the whole world.—1 John 2:2. 

It is not limited in its scope to those only who accept 
it. It does not make God and Man “at one,” for the 
majority of men either never hear of it, or, hearing 
of it deliberately ignore it. “‘At-one-ment”’ is accom- 
plished by an entirely different process, as we shall see. 

So comprehensive and perfect was the atonement 
thus made that judgment for sins never appears in the 
judgments prophesied to take place after that of Cal- 
vary. Its effect was to accomplish for the Race an 
amount or degree of righteousness which should be 
enough to offset in Man’s mind (not God’s) Man’s 
unrighteousness. ‘This is the usual and correct mean- 
ing of atonement—to offset a wrong by a right which 
shall be sufficient to balance the wrong. Its spiritual 
effect corresponds exactly to the spiritual effect of 
paying a debt; hence it is so likened. So long as your 
debt is unpaid you have the debtor’s attitude—the 
debtor’s conscience toward your creditor. But when 
the debt is paid you feel entirely different; and this 
feeling is of great importance. 

Atonement has no effect whatever upon the attitude 
of God toward Man. God loved the Man before the 
world was. 


70 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life. —John 3: 16. 

Aside from its effect upon the Man’s sense of guilt, 
it affects only the Law’s hold upon him; and even that 
is not its primary importance, for the Law’s hold might 
have been broken by an act of atonement not requiring 
“all men’ publicity. 

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even 
so must the Son of man be lifted up: 

That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have 
eternal life. —John 3:14, 15. 

The primary purpose of the atonement is to affect 
the spirit of the Man himself; i.e., his attitude to- 
ward God, which is one of enmity and misunderstand- 
ing. 

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is 
not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 

So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. 

—Romans 8:7, 8. 

Let Man realize that an amount of righteousness suf- 
ficient to offset his own unrighteousness has actually 
been performed and accepted as a consideration ade- 
quate to pay his debt, and the debtor’s attitude—the 
spirit of distrust and antagonism toward his creditor— 
is nullified. The burden rolls away: happy day! 

This is the phenomenon absolutely necessary to the 
consummation of God’s purpose in redeeming Man 
from the grasp of Sin; for unsaved Man has but one 
conscious relation to Sin, the moral relation of guilt; 


OF SAVING FAITH 71 


and guilt is a thing of the spirit—a thing of attitude. 
Except his spirit can be freed from guilt he cannot 
believe in his acceptance by God as a beloved son, with- 
out which belief he cannot be saved, because he can- 
not trust God to do the rest of the work for him. Man 
by nature does not know that he is spiritually dead. 
This is impossible. But he does know that he is guilty 
under the Law. This is the purpose of the Law. 

Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it 
saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may 
be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 

Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be 


justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. 
—Romans 3:19, 20. 


This sense of guilt or unrighteousness, and its con- 
sequent attitude toward God, can be nullified only by a 
sense of righteousness. The atonement of Jesus Christ, 
“the lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” 
provides this sense of righteousness when, by faith, 
the Man makes that death his own. But whether he 
makes it his own or not, the fact of the atonement re- 
mains the same. The unregenerate dead who stand 
before the Great White Throne are not cast into the 
lake of fire because of their wicked works, but because 
they are not found written in the Book of Life. 

And death and hell were cast into the lake of, fire. This is 
the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the 
book of life was cast into the lake of fire—Rev. 20: 14, 15. 

The reason they are not found written in the Book 
of Life, furthermore, is not because of their sins— 


72, THE PSYCHOLOGY 


the acts of transgression which they have committed, 
the things which they have done—but because of the 
one thing which they have not done. ‘They have not 
accepted the atoning work of their appointed substi- 
tute; they are unregenerate. The Book of Life con- 
tains the names of those only whom the Son hath 
quickened. 


Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not, that the spirits are 
subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are 


written in heaven. —Luke 10: 20. 
For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; 
even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. —John 5:21. 


The other goat or kid of Leviticus 16, known as the 
azazel, or scapegoat, was the one upon whom the high 
priest by physical contact ceremoniously laid the bur- 
den of the sins of the whole people, this burden to be 
borne by it away from the people into the wilderness. 
Note that the body of the animal thus assumed the re- 
lation to Sin which the people’s bodies bore—a relation 
called “‘uncleanness.” 

In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house 
of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for 
uncleanness. —Zech. 13:1. 

His body became unclean with the sins of the people; 
and the separation of his body of sin from the people 
typihed the power of the Lamb of God to separate us 
from the effect of sin on the body—uncleanness—a 
condition. 

And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the 
live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the chil- 


OF SAVING FAITH 7s 


dren of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, 
putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him 
away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. 

—Lev. 16:21. 

It is not alone sufficient for the Man’s peace of 
mind and freedom from the hold of the Law upon him 
that he should be free from the sense of guilt. His 
body was the instrument of unrighteousness. His body 
committed the transgression. It has its own particular 
relation to it, and that relation must be dissolved. 

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the 
church, and gave himself for it; 

That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of 
water by the word, 

That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not 
having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should 
be holy and without blemish. —Eph. 5: 25-27. 

Lady Macbeth’s “Out damned spot!” is an expres- 
sion of the body’s relation to sin. “The blood of Jesus 
Christ cleanseth us from all sin,’ as well as atones for 
all sins. | 

If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in 
darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: 

* But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have 
fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ 
his Son cleanseth us from all sin. —1l John 1:6, 7. 

The azazel did not shed his blood in the presence of 
the people, but his life, none the less, was given for 
them and he thus became the type of the cleansing 
sacrifice, the sin-bearing-away Lamb of God. With- 
out doubt this was the import of the word of John 


74 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


Baptist: “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away 
the sin of the world.” And doubtless this reference to 
the yearly spectacle of Leviticus 16 was perfectly 
understood by the people. 

This, then, was the threefold meaning of the Cross: 

I. Redemption from the penalty of Sin, the “second 
death’’—the final consummation of the sentence of the 
garden as well as the awful destiny, under the law, of 
“the soul that sinneth.” This is the application of the 
atoning work of Christ to the psuché which still awaits 
execution of that sentence which has, for all the un- 
regenerate, been deferred until the day of the Great 
White Throne (Rev. 20). 

II. Redemption from the guilt of Sin—that hold of 
Sin upon the spirit which, placing Man in the position 
of debtor, fills his mind with the debtor’s anxiety, 
enmity and misunderstanding of his creditor, and 
makes reconciliation impossible until the debt has been 
paid. 

IiI. Redemption from the uncleanness or defilement 
of sin—its stain upon the body of Man; which body 
being an integral part of the human triune being is 
just as much in need of redemption from Sin as the 
soul or the spirit. 

The one word which expresses the sum-total of this 
threefold work of Grace performed for Man by the 
Lamb of God upon the Cross is “Redemption,” whose 
relation to the plan of Salvation may be indicated by 
locating it in the diagram on the left of the foundation 
stone, resting upon its Lamb of God side; for Re- 


OF SAVING FAITH 75 


demption was a work of the “Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world.” 


And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose 
names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain 
from the foundation of the world. —Rev. 13:8. 


See frontispiece. 


CHAPTER IX 
RECONCILIATION 
The Second Work of Grace For the Sinner 


And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to him- 
self by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of 
reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the 
world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; 
and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now 
then we are ambassadors for Christ; as though God did be- 
seech you by us, we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye recon- 
ciled to God. 2 Corinthians 5: 18-20. 


ECONCILIATION, the second work of Grace 

involved in the Plan of Salvation, is the sum- 
total of Remission, Repentance and Forgiveness. That 
is to say, these three factors, so important to Man’s 
salvation, are but the component membership of 
another factor much more important than either or any 
two of them. 

This, like Redemption, is a work of Grace done for 
the lost Man, not in him; for while repentance, it is 
true, is an inward effect, it is accomplished on the 
initiative of the Holy Spirit. 

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forebearance 
and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God 
leadeth thee to repentance? —Romans 2: 4. 

We do not read of the sacrificial offering of Jesus 
Christ accomplishing the reconciling of God to the 

76 


OF SAVING FAITH ‘es 


world, that was unnecessary, but of the world to God. 
(See above.) 

The first member of this Truth-trinity to be con- 
sidered is Remission, from a Greek word meaning to 
let go, from which same Greek root we have Ephesus, 
the church which “let go”—forsook—its first love 
(Rev. 2:4). 

Remission is something which we have by virtue of 
the all-atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, fulfilling the 
type of the sins-atoning lamb of Leviticus 16. And 
not only those who believe and accept that atoning 
work have remission accomplished for them, but all 
men, whether they believe and accept or not, have the 
work done for them. The Lamb shed His precious 
blood for all sins of all men for all time (1 John 2: 
2). As already pointed out, judgment for sins is never 
mentioned as involved in any judgment after that of 
the Cross, where “once for all” Jesus the Lamb tasted 
death “for every man.” 


But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the 
angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and 
honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for 
every man. —Heb. 2:9. 

The blood of Jesus Christ was a perfect sacrifice, 
perfectly acceptable to the Father, and were it not 
for the guilty conscience of Man—the debtor spirit, 
which keeps him at enmity with God—all men would 
participate, to their eternal salvation, in that perfect 
work. The doom of the unsaved is pronounced upon 


78 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


them not for their sins, but for their lifelessness in 
that day of the Great White Throne. 

By deliberately refusing to accept God’s testimony 
concerning His Son, they made God a liar and have 
forever placed themselves beyond the reach of His 
mercy. 

He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in 
himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; be- 
cause he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. 

—1 John 5:10. 

Because the blood of Jesus Christ is accepted in 
atonement for the sins of “all men,” God has “let those 
sins go’—remitted them. 

If remission alone were sufficient to bring Man 
within the reach of God’s grace, all men would be 
saved. But it is not. 

Remission is all on God’s side. The Life has been 
offered up and accepted in substitution. The Law has 
been fulfilled and satisfied. The unpayable debt has 
been paid: but Man has had nothing whatever to do 
with the paying. He has not even been consulted. 

Man is not saved because God has let go his sins. 
Something else is necessary. He must himself let go 
his sins. That is to say, he must turn from them. 

In order to do this, a clearly revealed process, known 
as “conviction of sin,’ must be carried out in his mind. 

I. He must be convinced that God is a righteous 
God. To bring this about thousands of years of human 
history are marked by object lessons of the righteous- 


OF SAVING FAITH 79 


ness of God—see the whole Old Testament history of 
Man and note its necessity to a concept of Sin. 


Ii. He must be convinced that he himself is not 
righteous. To this end Sinai, the people Israel, the 
Law. 

Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: 
for if there had been a law given which could have given life, 
verily righteousness should have been by the law. 

But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the 
promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that 
believe. 

But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up 
unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto 
Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 

But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a school- 
master. —Galatians 13: 21-25. 

III. Then he must be convinced that because God is 
righteous He has a right to demand righteousness from 
His creature; and because he, the creature, is not 
righteous, a debt has uprisen hopelessly beyond his 
ability to pay. 

Along these lines the Holy Spirit in this dispensa- 
tion works to “convince the world of sin, of righteous- 
ness and of judgment’’—the only thing the Spirit has 
to do for the sinner and without which faith lacks 
understanding. John 3:16 presented to a man who 
has no conception of sin, righteousness and judgment, 
is a beautiful puzzle. The revelation of the love of 
God was not intended to be made—as it too frequently 
is today—without a revelation of His lawful wrath. 

6 


80 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


It must not be supposed, however, that the claim is 
here made that the spirit of man under conviction 
moves in orderly and conscious progress through the 
three steps toward true repentance above outlined. 
This is but the analysis of the method of the working 
Spirit to arouse faith. Conviction is not faith. 

“God is righteous. I am sinful. I am lost!’’ is the 
consciousness that bears in upon every awakened soul 
before it turns its startled eyes in faith toward the 
Cross, as the stricken Israelite in the wilderness turned 
his to the brazen serpent. 

When the goodness of God, which leads to repent- 
ance, has accomplished for the lost Man conviction, 
repentance is the result—a turning away from his sins ; 
and this in two senses: 

I. As a barrier between him and salvation. Until 
the sinner can see the sufficiency of the blood of Jesus 
Christ to atone for his sins, the debtor spirit is an in- 
surmountable barrier between him and his Maker. He 
must cease to consider his sins as standing between 
him and salvation before he can be saved. 

This is the point at which faith begins its saving 
operation. Faith in God as God, or in the righteous- 
ness, mercy and love of God, saves nobody. The faith 
must be in the sufficiency of the atonement of Jesus 
Christ the Son of God. 

Il. As the danger threatening his harmony with God. 
He must let go those practices of the natural man 
which transgress the law. 

Repentance, however, is entirely upon the side of 


OF SAVING FAITH 81 


the sinner. He has it all to do. But he is not with- 
out help. That help is the spectacle of Golgotha—the 
Incarnate God Himself fulfilling the Law; Himself 
paying the debt. This awakens in the sinner’s mind a 
conviction that the payment must be acceptable. 


Thus the revelation of such unfathomable mercy 
and love performing for him an act which he himself 
could not possibly perform, overcomes his antagonism 
and mistrust, and he turns toward (conversion) Him 
whom He once feared for his sins’ sake and hated be- 
cause he feared. This is the divinely sought outcome 
of repentance. 

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest. 

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek 
and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 

—Mat. 11:28, 29. 

Thus far two-thirds of the work of reconciliation 
has been accomplished in Remission and Repentance. 
But there still remains a most important third. This 
third member of the Reconciliation triunity is Forgive- 
ness. 

The same Greek word is translated both remission 
and forgiveness, but the difference between the two 
is indicated by the Saxon root of the second render- 
ing, which is gif—‘“to cause another to take.” 

Forgiveness is remission which has been taken, or 
which one has been caused to take. That is to say, 
unless God shall succeed in causing the lost Man to 
take—in the active sense—the remission which he has 


9? THE PSYCHOLOGY 


accomplished for him, that remission is of none effect 
for salvation so far as that individual is concerned, 
notwithstanding it has forever wiped his sins from 
God’s remembrance. Only the believer has remission. 

To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name 
whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. 

‘ —Acts 10: 43. 

Belief on the Lord Jesus Christ enables the Man to 
take remission and, by taking it, make it forgiveness. 
Only by grasping the assurance that his sins are re- 
mitted, because they have been actually atoned for by 
another, does the sense of deliverance become his. 
Therefore it is absolutely essential that he fix his eye 
of faith upon the Man who fulfilled the law in his 
stead. 

The belief that God is and that He is the rewarder 
of them that diligently seek Him is the first requisite 
of approach to God, but it does not save. It is clearly 
true that belief in God saves nobody. All men believe 
in God—some sort of God: for “He hath not left 
himself without a witness” but ‘Ye believe in God, be- 
lieve also in me.’ “There is no other name given 
under heaven.” 

Thus far in the scope of this chapter we have said 
very little about the prime factor in this, to some, 
mysterious operation of vicarious atonement. The 
“Gospel of the blood” has fallen into disrepute among 
a certain class of self-appointed leaders of the learned 
in these latter days, but nothing seems to have a larger 
place in God’s thought concerning redemption than 


OF SAVING FAITH 83 


the Blood of the Lamb slain from the foundation of 
the world. It is because the “precious blood” stands 
for the precious life of the Embodiment of God. In 
every age the “Son” has always been the embodiment 
of the Father-Life—the Spirit of Life. He was not 
only the incarnation of God by sonship, He was the 
incarnation of Man by the appointment of the Father, 
and as such had laid upon Him, as He hung there, 
all the sins of all men, and in addition was made sin 
that He might perfectly fulfill all the requirements of 
the God-appointed sacrifice. 

It has been truly said, God has never forgiven a 
single sin, but has executed punishment for them all 
on the Man of men, “the seed of the woman,” and 
the blood is the evidence of the transaction. Without 
it “there’is no remission.” 

And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; 
and without shedding of blood is no remission—Heb. 9: 22. 

Now, while Remission is all on God’s side and Re- 
pentance is all on Man’s side, Forgiveness is on both 
sides. God, causing the Man to take Remission, brings 
God and the Man together in Forgiveness: and the 
condition thus established between the two, which can 
be established in no other way, is known as Recon- 
ciliation, the at-one-ment erroneously ascribed to the 
Cross work. 

And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to him- 


self by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of 
reconciliation ; 


To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto 


84 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath 
committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ; as though God 
did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ’s stead, Be ye 
reconciled to God. 

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; 
that we might be fates the righteousness of God in him. 

—2 Cor. 5: 18-21. 

It should be pointed out that Remission is a work of 
Grace of which the sinner for whom it is performed 
may be entirely ignorant, and of which he may never 
avail because of that ignorance or because of wilful 
rejection. And repentance may have place in man’s 
mind without going so far as to accomplish in him all 
that has been implied in the above discussion of this 
thought, and therefore, true to the law of triunity re- 
quiring the presence of all three component members 
to constitute the triune thing Reconciliation fail of 
accomplishment. Witness the many instances of 
pseudo-Christianity which ignore the atonement while 
they go through the forms of repentance and reforma- 
tion. Regret for evil conduct is in fact repentance. 
One may be sorry for his evildoing and the result be 
a genuine reformation of conduct. But refusing to 
look to Him “lifted up” it may never be anything more 
than reformation—never anything more than a frus- 
tration of the Divine Purpose. 

Remission, Repentance and Forgiveness are all 
equally involved and Reconciliation is impossible with- 
out the effective operation of all three. 

The place of Reconciliation in our diagram is mani- 


OF SAVING FAITH 85 


festly upon the human side of the foundation, for it 
is the human Jesus who is understandable by men. It 
is the uplifted Son of Man who draws all unto Him, 
although, sad to say, that wondrous spectacle of Love 
Triumphant is not always followed by the “coming” 
of submissive faith. 

“Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life” 


(John 5:40). 


CHAPTER X 
REGENERATION 
The First Work of Grace In the Believer 


Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a 
man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into 
the kingdom of God. John 3:5. 


FE} HAVE considered the first two works of 

Grace involved in the Plan of Salvation and 
have found them to be works performed for the 
Man, and, therefore, preliminary to salvation itself: 
for the latter does not begin to operate in the Man 
until Redemption and Reconciliation have been 
achieved for him. God ‘does not trust the gift of 
Eternal Life to an enemy any more than He consults 
that enemy as to the method by which He shall make 
him a friend. 

Upon the consummation of Reconciliation then, Sal- 
vation begins with the gift of Eternal Life—the Re- 
birth. 

Herein lies the absolute necessity of the Man ac- 
cepting the Divinity of Jesus Christ. His salvation 
begins with the gift of Eternal Life and that Life is 
Christ Himself (so designated time and again as, for 
instance, “He that hath the Son hath life’ (1 John 5: 
12); ‘When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then 
shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:4). 

86 


OF SAVING FAITH 87 


The Father cannot trust Divine Sonship to one who 
denies that Sonship’s Divine source. 


The Salvation triunity is of profoundest importance 
and highest place in all revealed Truth. It consists 
of a group of three triunities (see diagram) and 1s 
the sum-total of 


RE generation, 


REnewing of the Holy Ghost, and 
REhabilitation (or resurrection), 


the last two being component members of the first. 
Each one of these three groups comprising the Sal- 
vation Truth-trinity is itself the sum-total of three 
things necessary to its completeness, the last of the 
three, Rehabilitation, showing, perhaps, less of the 
characteristics of triunity than the first and second. 


It is ignorance of, or indifference to, the fact that 
Salvation is thus threefold in its nature and operation, 
and that the whole work of Saving Grace is not a 
single act performed in the Man at conversion, which 
is, to a large extent responsible for such lamentable 
diversity of creeds among Christian people and sects 
well-nigh innumerable. 

In many cases the doctrinal differences of the Evan- 
gelical churches are not due so much to the asserva- 
tion of the disputed doctrine as to its presence in the 
concept where it does not belong. 


Salvation, then, requires for its consummation three 
distinct works of Grace, each limited to that member 


QQ THE PSYCHOLOGY 


of the human triunity to which it is adapted. That 
is to say, the Salvation Triunity consists of— 
(1) Newness of Soul, or Life by a gift of Grace. 


For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God ¢s 
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord—Romans 6:23. 


(2) Newness of Spirit by an experience of Grace. 


But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead 
wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of 
spirit, and not i the oldness of the letter. —Romans 7: 6. 


(3) Newness of body by a miracle of Grace. 

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but 
we shall all be changed, 

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: 
for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised in- 
corruptible, and we shall be changed. 

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this 
mortal must put on immortality. 

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and 
this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought 
to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in 
victory. —1 Cor. 15: 51-54. 


(By some teachers these are spoken of as the past, 
present and future of Salvation.) 

Around these three works of Grace, the sum-total 
of which is Salvation, cluster all the doctrine, revela- 
tion and prophecy of the Word, especially the New 
Testament. 

The Greek word for soul, meaning the natural soul, 
is psuché, as already pointed out, which word is also 
rendered life; so that life and soul are identical ideas 
in the Greek of the New Testament. It is to be borne 


OF SAVING FAITH 89 


in mind also, that the word for spirit, pneuma, mean- 
ing literally breath or wind, is never translated life, 
with perhaps, one or two exceptions, and these insig- 
nificant, but always “spirit” or its literal rendering 
above given. This is significant as indicating that soul 
and spirit are not identical in the Word of God. But 
psuché is not the word used in the Greek when the 
everlasting—eternal—soul or life is referred to. Here 
the Divine Author uses an entirely different word— 
feoeo 

Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ—acceptance of His 
substitutional work—in short, compliance with the first 
requirements of saving faith, is rewarded by the gift 
of Eternal Zoé; nothing more. The new, the Eternal, 
the supernatural Zoé, is the gift of God to the Man 
who, taking Him at His word, turns from his sins to 
his substitute. This, the rebirth, is called a mystery. 

To whom God would make known what is the riches of the 
glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ 
in you, the hope of glory: —Col. 1:27. 

Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the 
sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither 
it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. 

—John 3:7, 8. 

The fact that the New Life is expressed in the 
original Greek by a new word, strongly suggests that 
truth which has always so much needed to be enforced; 
viz., that God’s work of salvation is new from the 
foundation up. God never has done anything for 


90 : THE PSYCHOLOGY 


human nature as such, and, in this dispensation, never 
will. It is exactly the same today that it has always 
been. A Scriptural passage which probably requires 
less explanation than any other is that relating to the 
murder of Abel. Aside from the spiritual significance 
of the two offerings, not here to be considered, it is 
always understood bécause it is so true to human 
nature in all generations. | 

There is no remodeling or reconstructing of the Old 
Adam in us. The work starts with an absolutely new 
creation. 

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: 
old things are passed away; behold all things are become new. 

—2 Cor. 5:17. 

But there is a use for the old Man in the work of 
salvation and, apparently, only one. The figure of 
seed-sowing is often used by our Lord, and the new 
life is frequently likened to seed sown in soil. God’s 
use for the “first Adam’”—the natural Man, in his 
work of saving Grace, is the same use that the florist 
makes of his flower-pot full of earth. He plants 
therein His precious seed. It roots in the natural Man. 
It finds there the crude materials with which to clothe 
its new being. The plant and the flower are not a 
patching up of the pot and the earth, they are new. 

I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 

So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that 
watereth; but God that giveth the increase. { 

Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and 
every man shall receive his own reward according to his own 


labour. —l1 Cor. 3:6-8. 


OF SAVING FAITH 91 


But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excel- 

lency of the power may be of God, and not of us. 
—2 Cor. 4: 5-7. 

Human love differs from Divine Love only in 
degree, the ‘difference being in this: that the highest 
possibility of human love is that it may give its life 
for its friends, but Divine Love could give its life for 
its enemies. 


Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his 
life for his friends. —John 15: 13. 


Moreover, the plant and its flower are something 
very different from the soil and its pot. No one would 
think of confusing them; and yet how many Chris- 
tian people seem to be utterly oblivious to the fact 
that the Divine Florist is cherishing the precious plant 
as the object of His solicitude; that He cares for the 
pot full of earth as a means to an end only. Mean- 
while rival growths are discouraged and we are en- 
joined to keep the vessel and its contents free from 
contamination. 

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is 


this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and 
to keep himself unspotted from the world. —James 1:27. 

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye 
should abstain from fornication: 

That every one of you should know how to possess his 
vessel in sanctification and honour: —1 Thess. 4: 3, 4. 

This may, perhaps, be more readily understood if 
we look back to the catastrophe which robbed Man of 
his spiritual relation to God. It left him bereft of all 


92 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


in him that was supernatural. When God breathed 
into him the “breath of two lives” he became a “living 
soul,” literally a “living life,” possessed of animal life 
plus spiritual life, and the only being in the universe 
so endowed. 

But with the first act of disobedience came the great 
change to spiritual death, or separation from God. 
Man ceased to be a “living life.” Made in the image 
of his Creator, he dropped to the level of “all flesh,” 
possessed of the natural life only. 


And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with 
man, for that he also ts flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred 
and twenty years. —Gen. 6: 3. 


In spite of his lofty aspirations, his bold assumptions, 
his dreams of glory—echoes only of what he once was 
—there has been no difference between Man and the 
so-called lower animals from that day to this save a 
difference of degree in the matters of wisdom, power 
and intelligence and a fundamental difference in re- 
spect of the Moral Law. 

Students of natural history have long been trying 
to draw the line of demarkation between Man and the 
other higher animals without success. The anatomist 
finds the difference to consist mainly of variations in 
the shape, size and number of bones, those varia- 
tions being, in fact, not so very great. The physi- 
ologist finds so little difference that for him the physi- 
ology of a man and a horse are expressed in practically 
the same terms. The histologist finds little if any dif- 


OF SAVING FAITH 93 


ference at all, and the Word of God seems to agree 
with this finding. 

Humiliating as it no doubt is to the “Lord of Crea- 
tion” in his unregenerate condition, the apparent dif- 
ference between him and his animal slaves, aside from 
his intellectual superiority, lies in his moral conscious- 
ness—his amenity to the Moral Law, the Sinaitic Code 
—to which he is inexorably held by his Maker as a 
means to an end (that end being conviction of sin, 
righteousness, and judgment, Romans 3: 19-20) from 
which law all other animal life is exempt. ‘Thou shalt 
not steal” was spoken to Man alone. 


We have stated at the outset that the first death was 
a separation of the Man from his Creator as Spirit; 
from God the Spirit of Life, God the Spirit of Truth 
and God the Spirit of Power—the Spirit’s trinity. 

And after three days and a half the Spirit of life from God 


entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great 
fear fell upon them which saw them. —Rev. 11:11. 
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide 
you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but 
whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will 
shew you things to come. —John 16: 13. 
And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: 
but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with 
power from on high. —Luke 24: 49. 


Accordingly it is the “Spirit of Life from God” 
which thus is bestowed upon him in this first work of 
Grace, implanted in the believer as a seed is planted 
in a pot of earth. In this degree he is the possessor 


94 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


of the Holy Spirit by the first reception thereof in the 
“new birth.” 

Aad this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal 
life, and this life is in his Son. 

He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the 
Son of God hath not life. 

By the act of the first Adam Man lost his corres- 
pondence with his Spiritual environment. By the gift 
of God, in acknowledgment of his faith in and iden- 
tification with Jesus Christ, the “second Adam,” he is 
restored to that relation. 

And now, the salvation work having been begun in 
him, he is a child of God, just as much, in respect of 
the fact of sonship, as he ever will be. His after de- 
portment, it is true, may be sadly inconsistent with this 
fact. As a Christian he may produce very little fruit, 
and the pruning may seem severe. Or, perchance, he 
may prove hopelessly fruitless. Then the Divine Hus- 
bandman only knows when the knife is applied. 

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 

Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: 
and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may 
bring forth more fruit. 

The moment that the life-seed is planted and growth 
has started, the second work of Grace in the believer 
begins, and this work is the bringing into being of a 
new spirit, This is an entirely different process, a 
work which is devoted to the believer’s spirit only. 
And this we will now proceed to consider. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE RENEWING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 
The Second Work of Grace In the Believer 


And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed 
by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that 
good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2. 


(The above is one passage where mind is used to 
convey the idea of spirit, having the thought of pur- 
pose or intention. It has no reference to the intellect 
or reasoning faculty. Other passages make use of the 
word mind in the same manner. See Romans 11: 34, 
Perera 10).2 ¢hnes. 2 2, etc.) 


E, HAVE already tried to show the scope of the 

term “spirit”; have pointed out the fact that 
“soul” and “spirit” are never confused in the Word 
of God; have tried to show that all of Man which is 
not soul or body is spirit; that spirit, in fact, is that 
peculiar quality of being which determines attitude to- 
ward things and differentiates one man from another. 
At first view it may appear that this presentation of 
the meaning of spirit robs the Holy Spirit of person- 
ality. But a few references to the use of spirit in the 
Word will show that to it belongs personality as an at- 
tribute, whether the spirit be human or Divine. Two 
striking instances will illustrate the point sought to be 


95 
7 


96 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


made; viz., the second coming of Elijah; the person 
in the spirit of John the Baptist. 

And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, 
to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the dis- 
obedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people 
prepared for the Lord. —Luke 1:17. 

And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes 
that Elias must first come? 

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall 
first come, and restore all things. 

But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they 
knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. 
Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. 


Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of 
John the Baptist. —Mat. 17: 10-13. 


Witness the possession of Peter for a brief moment 
by the spirit of Satan, who is recognized and called by 
name by our Lord. 


And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must 
suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the 
chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days 
rise again. 

And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and 
began to rebuke him. 

But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, 
he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for 
thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things 
that be of men. —Mark 8: 31-33. 


Spirit is that member of Man’s triunity to which be- 
long intelligence, thought, reason, purpose (the latter 
in the sense of intention or mind to do; in this sense 
frequently used in the Word as synonymous with 


OF SAVING FAITH 97 


spirit: see the Great Commandment, Mark 12: 30 and 
Romans 12:2), but never Will, this being the pre- 
rogative of the Ego alone as already shown. 

A striking thing about the human spirit is that it 
is the only member of the human triunity which is 
subject to radical change. The soul remains the same 
potent emotional force, the motive power of the human 
engine practically unchanged from generation to gen- 
eration. The body changes slightly in size and out- 
ward appearance; but the spirit is subject to a con- 
stant process of change. 

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed 
by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that 
good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. 

—Romans 12: 2. 


The child comes into the world with the potential 
spirit only. That is to say it has no character, no at- 
titude. Very soon, however, this takes form and 
manifests itself. Very early it shows a decided pref- 
erence for its mother and distrust of strangers and 
strange things. Very quickly the forming attitude as- 
sumes its relation to its environment and develops its 
own characteristic way of looking at things. After 
several years it becomes conscious of the fact that the 
claims of God upon it are interfering with its own 
plans and purposes and then, at that point, the child 
ceases to be “little” in the sense in which Jesus used 
the word. Its spirit has become the natural attitude 
toward God; the “carnal mind” which is ‘enmity 
against God.” 


98 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the king- 

dom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. 
—Mark 10:15. 

It is likewise true that the process commonly called 
education is an experimental matter, by which we 
undertake to adapt our attitude to its environment. 
The burnt child’s dread of fire is but the adaptation 
of attitude to that element with which he has been ex- 
perimentally in contact, and serves at once as a factor 
in his education and a characteristic of his spirit. The 
educated man is he whose rough corners of ignorant 
prejudice have been rounded off by rubbing against 
the truth; for it is experience which is by far the most 
effective, if not the only, force to mold and change the 
spirit or attitude. 

Moreover, spirit is subject to sudden and temporary 
changes of great and widespread effect. A wave of 
some particular kind of spirit may sweep over a com- 
munity and speedily possess nearly everybody in it. 
We recognize this phenomenon when we speak of the 
“revival spirit” or the “war spirit.” 

Shortly after the disaster to the warship Maine in 
Havana harbor, certain newspapers throughout the 
country, without any other warrant than their desire 
to arouse excitement and sell their goods, began pub- 
lishing “‘scare-heads” and editorials about the “war 
spirit’; and in an incredibly short space of time the 
whole country was aflame with the purpose and intent 
of war, and war followed. 

These phenomena are just as frequent among the 


OF SAVING FAITH 99 


lower animals. Wolves hunt in troops. Two fighting 
dogs will draw half a dozen others into the battle. (1 
witnessed a remarkable instance illustrating this at- 
tribute of spirit among the lower animals years ago on 
my grandfather’s farm. The dairy herd consisting of 
ten to fifteen cows had been despotically ruled for 
many years without intermission by a certain old black 
cow. The fact that she was old and decrepit and had 
lost a horn seemed to make no difference. She was 
boss (spirit). But the advent of a fine young Guern- 
sey, who didn’t know, started something. Hurrying 
to the meadow, in which direction I heard the most 
agonized bellowing, I perceived the whole herd, led by 
the Guernsey, with horns atilt, after that old black 
cow. Before I could reach them they had her down 
and were goring her viciously, even the yearling heifer. 
I believe they would have killed her but for my inter- 
ference. ) 

The child of God enters the supernatural realm—the 
“Kingdom of God’’—through the door of birth, with 
a spirit anything but heavenly. His attitude toward 
his environment is, in greater or less degree, unmis- 
takably worldly; for, while the experience of conver- 
sion changes his attitude toward sin and self, about all 
his awakened consciousness realizes, it leaves it to- 
ward men and things, as a rule, unchanged to any very 
great degree. He does not have God’s way of looking 
at things; he still has his own selfish, fleshly, natural 
way. The natural Man hates God, tolerates his neigh- 
bor and loves things. 


100 THE’ PSYCHOLOGY 


All this must be changed (Romans 12:2) if he is 
to be exalted to the place (“‘adoption”) of a son. A 
prodigious work must be done im him; no less than 
the restoration to him of that which he once had in 
Adam—the Holy Spirit, the Holy Attitude—the holy 
way of looking at things. And this work, once in- 
augurated, must, against immeasurable difficulties, be 
prosecuted throughout his earthly existence, unless, in- 
deed, it be accomplished more or less early in his 
Christian experience, as it may be, by the process 
known as the “filling of the Spirit,” which means the 
believer’s immersion in the Spirit of Truth, a very 
happy and delectable condition, possible to all, but en- 
joyed by comparatively few. (And be not drunk with 
wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. 
Eph. 5: 18.) 

In the first phase of the regenerative work, the new 
birth, God, the Spirit of Life, becomes his life and he 
“a new creature” in the first, or LIFE, relation to his 
creator. 

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; 
old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 

—2 Cor. 5:17. 

The purpose of the second phase or step of the work 
is to establish in him the Spirit of Truth as his spirit, 
thus restoring to him his relation to God the Spirit of 
Truth, the which also he lost in the day that he ate 
thereof, 

So prodigious a work is this that it is itself a three- 
fold thing and must be later considered as such. Suffice 


OF SAVING FAITH 101 


it now to say that his natural antipathy for God, his 
natural mere toleration of his neighbor and his natu- 
ral love for things, must all undergo a change if the 
will of his Heavenly Father is to be accomplished in 
him; and the only agency by which spirit is ever 
molded is the agency used; viz., Experience—an ex- 
perience of Grace. 

The third work of Grace belonging to the Salvation 
triunity is Rehabilitation—the “clothing upon” with 
the spiritual body: “for there is a spiritual body” 
and that spiritual body is just as necessary to the per- 
fecting of God’s work for Man, and just as much a 
part of Salvation as the gift of the Divine Zoé. The 
latter begins the believer’s relation to the Plan of Sal- 
vation: Rehabilitation completes that relation and re- 
stores to the son of Adam his heritage by the embodi- 
ment in him of God the Spirit of Power. 

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. 
There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 

—1 Cor. 15: 44. 

This clothing of the new Soul and Spirit with the 
new or Spiritual Body occurs at the time of the return 
of the Son of Man to the heavens for His Church be- 
fore He manifests Himself and His Church to the 
world and takes possession of the throne of His father 
David. It is nothing more nor less than the bestowal 
upon the believer of a habitation or body “like unto 
his glorious body” and possessed of all the attributes 
and powers of His glorious body. 

It is not by a gift, the reward of faith, that this is 


102 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


accomplished, as in the case of the Divine Zoé, neither 
by an experience as in the case of the Divine Pneuma, 
but by a miracle—“in the twinkling of an eye at the 
last trump’”—and this grand climax to the work of 
Grace is known as the “manifestation of the sons of 
God” and is coincident with the “first resurrection.” 
It will be considered in a chapter by itself, as it also 
has a threefold aspect, although having component 
membership in the Salvation triunity with Regenera- 
tion and Renewing of the Holy Spirit as will be more 
clearly understood by reference to the diagram. 

The ultimate purpose in view in God’s salvation 
work is the restoration of Man to the state of fellow- 
ship with his Creator which in the beginning he en- 
joyed. Whatever that fellowship involved, a condition 
of exalted companionship is certainly indicated by the 
account of the early doings between God and Man 
(Genesis 2). And a return to those early conditions 
is strongly suggested by the fact that the five words 
which best express the whole process from the begin- 
ning to the final miracle of Grace all begin with the 
syllable “Re.” They are: 

REdemption, 

REconciliation, 

REgeneration, 

REnewing of the Holy Spirit, 
REhabilitation. 

Regeneration does not accomplish anything more in 
the believer than his issuance into Divine Life. He 
enters the supernatural world a “babe in Christ” with 


OF SAVING FAITH 103 


the babe’s instinct of dependence and clinging. He 
enters that world alive and no more. “He that hath 
the son hath life.’ “Ye will not come unto me 
that ye may have life.” “. .. has passed from death 
unto life.’ Speaking by the Book that is all. But it 
is a wonder of Grace. 


And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, 
but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 

I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto 
ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. 

—Romans 3: 1, 2. 

But, “having begotten us again unto a lively hope” 
there immediately follows the beginning of a work of 
infinite wisdom, love and forbearance by the Father: 
nothing less than the remolding, by a process of edu- 
cation in heavenly things, of the spirit of His beloved 
offspring. 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again 
unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from 
the dead. —l Peter 1:3. 

The mind of the flesh (the natural or “carnal” mind 
—not the intellect or reasoning power, which is but an 
attribute of mind) is “enmity against God” also, by 
reason of its constitutional selfishness, is in a loveless 
attitude toward its fellows and at the same time is 
deeply in love with the “things on the earth.” So we 
find that the work which God must do for His child 
is, first, to change the mind of enmity toward God; 
secondly, to change the mind of selfishness toward his 


104 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


brother; and, thirdly, to change the mind of affection 
toward the things of this world. 


It would seem at first glance that Reconciliation 
would cover the first enumerated work, but while it 
contributes largely toward this end, it does not suffice 
to consummate it. 


Reconciliation is the establishing of that relation of 
harmony between the Man and the Father which makes 
possible the bestowal, by the act of Divine Grace, of 
the New Life. It is, in a sense, a negative operation 
—a casting out of the natural attitude of disobedience. 
It is not the positive operation of filling with the super- 
natural (and holy) attitude of obedience, which is 
what we have under consideration at the moment. 


This spiritual factor in the work of salvation; i.e, 
the negative process of casting out the evil spirit of 
enmity, as distinct from the positive operation of put- 
ting in its place the Holy Spirit of righteousness, is 
what is referred to by Jesus in that difficult passage 
in Matthew 12 where we read, “When the unclean 
spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry 
places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, 
I will return unto my house whence I came out. And 
when he is come he findeth it empty, swept and gar- 
nished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven 
other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter 
in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is 
worse than the first.” 


It cannot be that the unrighteous man can forsake 


OF SAVING FAITH 105 


his thoughts and remain in that negative condition very 
long. 

In. respect of his spirit one cannot remain negatively 
poised between bad and good. The house that held 
the unclean spirit must be possessed by an occupant. 
The holy must take the place of the unholy or the 
latter will not stay cast out. 


The backslider is the practical everyday exemplifica- 
tion of this truth. Having undergone the emptying of 
the bad in the convicting work of the Holy Spirit for 
Repentance and Forgiveness, with their resulting 
Reconciliation, he did not receive the filling of the 
good, and the unclean returning, “the last state of that 
man is worse than the first.” 


Everyone who has had any experience in soul-win- 
ning knows how hardly a backslider returns to God, 
and also how difficult it is for those rescued from the 
depths of uncleanness to “stand” if sent at once from 
the Mercy Seat back into their old haunts and associa- 
tions. 


The means of accomplishing a change of attitude 
toward God is by an experience of God’s true attitude 
toward us. The man who feared God and hated Him 
because he feared Him, when he has been subjected 
to many and oft-repeated experiences of God’s loving 
kindness and tender mercy, His watchful providence 
and chastening discipline, will come presently to be 
possessed of an attitude of confidence toward God, a 
calm, trustful resting in Him. He will learn, in time, 


106 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


to say with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust 
him.” 

It is the mind of God that His child should have 
this attitude toward Him and, therefore, when the 
child has so learned to trust and rest in his Heavenly 
Father, he has become possessed of (or by) the Fa- 
ther’s spirit in this respect. He has been separated 
from fear, distrust and misunderstandig to confidence, 
trust and “fellowship with the Father.” 

This is the first step in the “Renewing of the Holy 
Spirit.” It is a difficult process, but not so difficult 
as the renewing of the believer’s mind toward his fellow 
man. 

“The second is this: thou shalt love thy neighbor 
as thyself.” 

It is God’s mind that His children should exhibit 
honesty, kindliness, and forbearance toward men in 
general, but especially toward each other. It is not 
strange, then, that we find so much of the sermon on 
the mount to consist of injunctions to the disciples 
concerning their attitude toward their fellow men. 
Neither is it strange to find the thirteenth chapter of 
first Corinthians just where it is and as prominent as 
it is. 

The child of God who is following the guidance of 
the Holy Spirit into his experience is not long in dis- 
covering that his Father in Heaven calls for more than 
mere toleration of other men. He soon finds that the 
very people whom he naturally dislikes are the very 
ones toward whom the Father would ofttimes have him 


OF SAVING FAITH 107 


cherish the kindliest of feelings. And when the be- 
liever’s attitude toward men is the same as the Father’s, 
who “so loved,’ he may truthfully be said to be pos- 
sessed of the Holy Spirit toward men; to have re- 
ceived, in this respect, the renewing of the Holy Spirit. 

But the most difficult part of the whole operation of 
renewing, in the believer, the Holy Spirit, is in respect 
of Mungs. 

“Set your affections upon things above and not on 
things on the earth.”—Col. 3: 2. 

The natural man loves neither his brother whom he 
hath seen, nor God whom He hath not seen, but he 
does love things. It may almost be said that in the 
degree that he loves things he hates God and his 
brother. 

It is always the last thing which the Spirit accom- 
plishes for the child of God, when he brings him to 
that point in his transformation where he can truth- 
fully say, “I care not for riches, neither silver nor 
gold.” 

This is because things in themselves seem so harm- 
less that the average believer can never (until he has 
learned his lesson) understand why he should not go 
on through his Christian experience with the same 
natural attitude toward them that he always had. 
There might be no reason why he should not if it were 
true that the temporal things were eternal. If the 
things of this world were intended to exist, just as 
they are, in the next, the believer whose affections are 
fixed upon them might suffer no loss in passing from 


108 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


this world into the next. But it is the unseen things 
that are eternal, and the spirit that is wedded to the 
things that are seen can have no room in his heart for 
the things that are unseen; and so, when ushered into 
an environment of which at least one-third consists of 
things for which he has no heart, he is a loser instead 
of a gainer. : . 

The “cares of this world” which choke the seed 
quite as much as the “deceitfulness of riches” all 
cluster around the things upon which the heart’s affec- 
tions have been set. 

Inasmuch as this is the natural man’s natural atti- 
tude toward the things of this world, and nothing that 
belongs to the natural can have any relation to the 
supernatural for which the Man is destined, the Spirit’s 
constant. effort is to set our affections upon things above 
and break us away from the things on the earth. 

This is largely the meaning of the inexplicable 
providences which meet the believer on his way, and 
over which he sometimes complains and asks “why” 
with tears of distrust in his eyes, forgetting that “He 
doeth all things well” and that “all things work to- 
gether for good to them that love the Lord.” 

But the key to the whole process of “the renewing 
of the Holy Spirit” lies in the kind of experience 
through which the Holy Spirit guides the believer, and 
the manner in which it is done. “He shall guide you 
into all the truth.” He shall not push, nor force, nor 
even lead as with a halter, but He shall guide, as 
though one at a distance pointed out the way with a 





OF SAVING FAITH 109 


wave of the hand or, even, in the language of the 
Psalm, “with mine eye.” 

This method of introducing us “into all the truth” 
is so easily ignored that it can be made effective only 
by the practice, on the believer’s part, of implicit obe- 
dience to the Spirit. Obedience is, first, last and all 
the time, the largest word in the Christian’s experience. 

It is worthy of note in passing that the effect of 
natural or worldly experience upon the human spirit 
is to develop diversity of attitude, while the effect of 
a Spirit-directed experience is exactly the reverse. 
“Unity of spirit” is an object sought to be attained by 
our Heavenly Preceptor. There is no excuse whatever 
for the diversity of creeds and denominations which 
exist among the children of God. They must be griev- 
ous to the Holy Spirit. 

But experience is a thing of action—of doing some- 
thing. Therefore the Holy Spirit who would educate 
us into an entire change of attitude toward all our 
environment, sets before us things to be done in our 
Christian life, the doing of which shall result in such 
a change. 

For instance: the believer’s apprehension of the fa- 
therly love of God is dependent upon his genuine 
yielding in trust to the keeping of that love and his 
ability to thus trust is in proportion to his obedience 
to the dictates of the Spirit. 

Disobedience is followed promptly by a loss of heart- 
confidence toward the Father, and without this heart- 
confidence trust is impossible. 


110 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


This law holds good throughout the whole process 
of “Renewing of the Holy Spirit.” The child of God 
must learn to obey before he can move into the holy 
attitude toward God, toward men and toward things. 
“And also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to 
them that obey him” (Acts 5: 32). 


CHAPTER XII 


THE RENEWING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 
(CoNTINUED) 
The Believer’s Word 


Ye shall be witnesses unto me. Acts 1:8. 

If the child of God came into his heavenly life as 
devoid of attitude as the child of earthly parents comes 
into his natural life, the process of education in Divine 
things would be a comparatively simple one, but he 
does not. He comes into the spiritual world with the 
natural attitude almost unchanged. ‘True, the “old 
things” of his former cringing furtiveness have all 
passed away. As between him and God the old burden 
“Has rolled away, happy day!” but the Renewing of 
the Holy Spirit contemplates more than this; no less 
than a new attitude toward God, toward men and to- 
ward things. 

The agency by which this is to be accomplished is 
what is commonly known as “Christian Experience” 
and, in the Word, as the Christian’s “Walk.” 


There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are 
in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the 


Spirit. —Romans 8: 1. 
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil 
the lust of the flesh. —Gal, 5: 16. 


This experience is conducted along three distinct 
lines: the Christian’s Word, his Works and his Wor- 


111 
8 


112 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


ship. Along these three parallel paths Christian Ex- 
perience moves, and the believer who is indifferent to, 
or undeveloped in, any one of them is sure to be a lop- 
sided Christian. 

His word is the testimony or word of mouth which 
the Spirit gives him to speak for his Saviour. It is 
the spirit’s spheré of activity. 

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come 
upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Je- 
rusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the utter- 
most part of the earth. —Acts 1:8. 

His work is the service of body which the Spirit 
prompts him to render as “unto the Lord.” 

Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our 
Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting 
consolation and good hope through grace, 

Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word 
and work. —2 Thess. 2: 16, 17. 

His worship is his exercise in the emotional realm 
of the soul by which the Spirit brings him nearer to 
the knowledge of the Father and an understanding of 
the Divine Fatherhood. 

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worship- 
pers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the 
Father seeketh such to worship him. —John 4: 23. 

All this is the direct work of the Holy Spirit operat- 
ing through the faithful obedience of the believer. 


We will discuss these three aspects of Christian ex- 
perience ad seriatim, beginning with the believer’s 
word of testimony—that which the Spirit gives him 
to say. 


OF SAVING FAITH heat iG 


“Ye shall be witnesses unto me.” The Christian’s 
word of mouth is the Holy Spirit’s ordained and ac- 
cepted medium of communication with men, whether 
it be for salvation by conviction of sin, or for edifica- 
tion, or consolation. Just as surely as language, 
whether written or spoken, is the medium by which 
the natural spirit manifests itself, so surely has God 
ordained that the spoken (or written) word shall serve 
this purpose for the Holy Spirit. : 

The part which the testimony of the Christian Wit- 
ness plays in his relation to the world about him is of 
a degree of importance very little understood by the 
Church, and even less appreciated. 

A doctrine has gained footing among her teachings 
which has no other warrant than the utterances of cer- 
tain generally accepted religious philosophers and the 
misinterpretation of a few irrelevant texts, to the effect 
that the believer’s doings—his works—constitute the 
most effective testimony he can give the sinner to con- 
vince him of his sins and the sufficiency of the atone- 
ment of Jesus Christ to save him from them. The doc- 
trine is erroneous and is responsible for a large part 
of the weakness and inadequacy of the so-called Chris- 
tian Church today. 

Young people are taught that all their Lord requires 
of them is a morally commendable life, a sort of 
righteous negativeness; and that sinners, beholding 
their exemplary characters, will be convicted of sin, 
of righteousness and of judgment. 

The truth is the believer’s works are not intended 


114 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


for the sinner’s conviction or conversion. ‘True, they 
have a bearing upon the value of his spoken word; 
they render it forceful in proportion as they are con- 
sistent with his professions. But such consistency is 
not absolutely necessary to the effectiveness of the 
testimony. Men have been saved by the half-meant 
trifling taunt of a far from consistent professor; for 
the taunt may be the truth, and all the Spirit needs for 
His work is the Truth. The new man is born of truth 
and the Spirit. 

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a 
man be born of water. and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into 
the kingdom of God. —John 3:5. 

The most serviceable effect on the unbeliever of the 
believer’s works, if consistent with a true testimony, is 
rather to divest the skeptic of his most cherished 
weapon of defense—the shortcomings of Christian 
people. But so far are they from serving the purpose 
in these days popularly assigned to them that they are 
not even recognizable as good works unless illumined 
by the shining light of Christian testimony. 

That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, 
without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, 
among whom ye shine as lights in the world; 

Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the 


day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured 
in vain. —Phil. 2:15, 16. 


Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your 
good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. 
—Mat. 5:16. 


It is the believer’s word either spoken or written, 


OF SAVING FAITH 115 


preferably the former, which is meant for the use of 
the Spirit in dealing with the unsaved, rather than the 
believer’s works, for the following reasons among 
others : 

I. The quality of an act is determined by its motive. 
The motive is never with certainty readable in the 
act. For this reason the Christian’s works are not 
adapted to carry conviction of sin to the unbeliever, 
and are not the ordained medium of the Holy Spirit in 
the conversion of the unsaved. The good works of 
the believer are no better, as such, than the good works 
of the unbeliever. What can the child of God ‘do which 
the child of Evil cannot—does not—do quite as well 
or even better? How can the bystander value one 
more highly than the other? 

And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did 
so as the Lord had commanded: and Aaron cast down his 
rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a 
serpent. 

Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: 
now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner 
with their enchantments. 

For they cast down every man his rod, and they became ser- 
pents: but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. 

—Ex. 7: 10-12. 

II. The significance of a really good act may be en- 
tirely misapprehended or overlooked. How often have 
we found our best deeds misconstrued because some- 
thing attending the circumstances lent them an untrue 
color? 

III. Goodness in a believer without a testimony is 


116 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


not convicting to the unbeliever, for goodness zithout 
Christ is the dream of the moralist and the Pharisee. 
You can be as good as you please, if you will keep 
quiet about Jesus Christ, and the World will not feel 
at all uncomfortable in your presence, in fact, will 
ostentatiously patronize you and take a great deal of 
credit to itself for so doing. Therefore, while the 
works of the believer may be misunderstood or mis- 
construed and thus prove fruitless as a testimony 
“unto” Jesus Christ, the intent and purpose of a true 
testimony is never misunderstood by the unbeliever. 
The Spirit takes care of this; and the Master Work- 
man can do very good work with a very poor tool. 

So true is this that many a time a mere word from 
a child of God has been used of the Spirit to lead a 
soul to repentance, when years of Christlike living 
have achieved nothing more than a good report for 
the believer. 

The following actual occurrence may serve to illus- 
trate this point: 

A young man of “good moral character” was an oc- 
casional attendant upon the services of the Baptist 
church in his village. There were two men prominent 
in that church, with one of whom he was very well 
acquainted. In fact he had known him as a friend 
for quite a number of years and had always been im- 
pressed by the thought that, if ever there was a Chris- 
tian man this friend was one. He honored him for 
his conscientious, consistent, Christian character. The 
other was a man of whom he knew very little except 


OF SAVING FAITH 117 


that he seemed always to have a great deal to say in 
the prayer meeting. 

A series of revival meetings were held in that vil- 
lage in the Baptist church, and Robert occasionally at- 
tended, as did most of the other young men of the 
town, as a sort of concession to respectability. 

One evening as the meeting broke up and the people 
were crowding out of the building, Robert stood at 
the exit as his talkative acquaintance was passing out. 
The latter turned to him, and with a kindly hand upon 
his shoulder, said, “Robert, is it not time you gave 
your heart to the Lord?” 

Said Robert, telling me the story, “It never fazed 
me’’—We are not responsible for what the Spirit does 
with the word we speak, we are responsible only for 
the speaking. At that moment his long-time friend 
stepped up and said, “Do not be troubled about Robert, 
I am praying for him.” 

“When I heard that,” said Robert, “I knew what I 
had to do.” 

Years of intimate acquaintance with, and sincere 
regard for, this conscientious and consistent Christian 
had made no further impression on the boy’s mind 
than that of respect and admiration. But when the 
word came “I am praying for him,” the Spirit wrought 
conviction. He knew what he had to do, and he did 
it. 

Furthermore, while the truth of God in testimony 
thus serves as the vehicle by which the Spirit reaches 
the heart and mind of the unsaved, its effect upon the 


118 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


one who speaks it is not lost. The act of speaking, 
just like any other act of obedience, has its reflex 
operation. The more frequently the believer lends 
himself as the Spirit’s mouthpiece, the easier testimony 
becomes and the more Christlike becomes his “con- 
versation.” With it, too, comes a keener sense of the 
Spirit’s promptings to testimony. He comes to know 
better when to speak and when to forbear. In short 
he becomes better acquainted with the Spirit’s methods 
and the “still small voice.” In fact it may be said that 
the believer’s obedience in testimony is the means by 
which he comes to “know” the Spirit himself. 

“And this is life eternal, that they should know thee 
the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, 
even Jesus Christ” (R. V. John 17:3). 

And, finally, the Gospel (literally God’s spell, or 
message) is a thing of words, not deeds. It is prob- 
ably true that one will not find a single instance in 
the Word where anyone is said to have been “filled 
with the Holy Ghost” that it is not immediately stated 
“he opened his mouth and said,” or the context will 
record his uttered words. 

If half the world were believers and never said so, 
the other half would never be saved by the convicting 
power of what they did. But if half the world were 
believers and ‘did not fail to be true to their obligation 
in the matter of their testimony, the other half, with 
all the powers of hell back of them, could not resist 
the onslaught. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE RENEWING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 
(CONTINUED) 


The Believer’s Works 


Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and 
doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his 
house upon a rock. Matthew 7: 24. 


HE, place and purpose of works as a part of the 

Christian’s experience is not, primarily, the bring- 
ing of others to Christ, as already pointed out, but to 
serve a purpose of God for the believer himself. 

It is the physical activities of man that make him 
what he is. It is his doings that mold his character. 
The influence of the body’s actions upon the body is 
so well understood that it is trite to say that a man is 
the creature of his calling. The mason, the shoe- 
maker, the lawyer, or the physician advertise their 
place in the workaday world to those who are skilled 
in such matters, by the poise of the head, the expres- 
sion of the face, the hang of the elbow or the curve 
of the back. But even more unmistakably by their 
peculiarities of spirit are they betrayed. The physician 
has the physician’s viewpoint for everything, and the 
shoemaker sees the world through the hole in his last. 

Men may think high thoughts and dream great 
dreams and make noble resolves; but the man who 

119 


120 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


thinks, or dreams, or resolves, and acts not, never be- 
comes the man of his aspirations. This is the meaning 
of those closing words of the sermon on the mount— 
part of which are quoted above. Jesus means to say 
that all the difference between magnificent success and 
deplorable failure in the great work of eternal char- 
acter-building lies-in the doing. He means that action 
is the eternal fixative of every good thought and pur- 
pose, without which they are as mere flotsam in the 
swirl of life. 

That is to say, faith is a trinity, involving Man’s 
threefold being. The impulse of the soul, directed by 
the controlling spirit, finds expression through the act 
of the body. Anything short of this entirety is not 
faith; or, speaking more Scripturally, is a “dead” 
faith. 

Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 

But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works 
is dead? —Jas. 2:17, 20. 

It is true in temporal matters as well as in spir- 
itual, that the act is the matrix of character. It is 
not the writers of dramas who furnish, as a class, the 
greatest number of inmates of insane asylums; it is 
the actors. It is the performer of music, rather than 
the composer, who is molded by the motif. 

A review, comparatively recent, of the work of Mr. 
Levenstein, a European student of sociology, makes 
this statement: 

“A most remarkable discovery made by Mr. Leven- 
stein was the influence exercised upon weavers by the 


OF SAVING FAITH 121 


rhythmical movements of their looms. These seemed 
to really sway the brains of the weavers, so that their 
thoughts tended to shape themselves metrically. It 
was found that most of their thinking was imaginative 
rather than speculative; and not less than eight hun- 
dred and seventeen poems (out of a total of 5,040 
answers elicited by Mr. Levenstein to his inquiries 
actually distributed among iron-workers, miners and 
weavers) were submitted by members of this group.” 
In short the doing, although by machinery, of. oft-re- 
peated rhythmical acts produced a rhythmical mind— 
or spirit, or way of looking at things. 

“In the course of a paper on the sacredness of our 
physical bodies in The Temple, Paul Tyner says: 
‘Every experience, every impulse, every emotion, leaves 
a physical record and tendency in the brain and nerv- 
ous system as a whole—that is to say, in the man. The 
different parts, or areas, of the brain are thus de- 
veloped, and what was potential becomes real. Each 
part, once made alive by use, and made to work in 
harmony with all the other parts, continues to act and 
react automatically upon the slightest stimulation. 
Herein is a fact which points to enormous possibilities 
for increased economy and effectiveness in education; 
a fact that demands serious consideration.’ 

“This simply says that the oftener you do a thing 
the easier it is to do it; and the law of cause and effect 
thus expressed is more potent in the domain of Chris- 
tian experience than anywhere else,’’ (1.e., in the psy- 
chology of Saving Faith). 


122 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


It is the Christlike deed that makes the believer 
Christlike. The rich young man’s need, in order that 
he might be “perfect,” was an experience of Christ- 
like doings, and his privilege was that he might share 
them with the very Christ Himself. 

The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept 
from my youth up: what lack I yet? 

Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that 
thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure 
in heaven: and come and follow me. —Mat. 19:20, 21. 

It is true that there are Christlike men, using the 
term in the sense of goodness, its broadest and lowest 
sense, who have been made so by their humanitarian, 
unselfish lives and self-sacrificing deeds, who, never- 
theless, are Christless. The young nobleman above 
referred to was Christlike in the degree in which he 
could with apparent truth say of the commandments, 
“all these have I kept from my youth,” but he went 
away greatly sorrowing. 


Many a magnificent exhibition of self-sacrifice 
which has thrilled our very souls at the hearing, has 
been performed by men in whom there was no Christ 
hfe and who were absolutely “without God and with- 
out hope in the world”; for Christlikeness in spirit is 
not the first work of saving Grace, but the second; 
and if it be not built upon the “foundation laid” 
the Christ life, bestowed by the Father as the gift of 
Grace, it is absolutely unavailing and insignificant. 


For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which 
is Jesus Christ. 





OF SAVING FAITH 123 


Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, 
precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; 


Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day 
shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the 
fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is. 

If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he 
shall receive a reward. 

If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but 
he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. 

—1 Cor, 3: 11-15. 

No man will ever be saved because he is good. 

The believer’s Christlike deed is that which “works 
out” his salvation; 1.e., develops the spirit of the 
Christ already born in him. It is for this reason that 
the Holy Spirit, the believer’s mentor, gives him some- 
thing to do. 

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in 
my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work 
out your own salvation with fear and trembling: 

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do 
of his good pleasure. —Phil. 2:12, 13. 

When will the church learn that the “great commis- 
sion” is not God’s forlorn hope, but His graving tool, 
without which He could, doubtless, give the Gospel 
to the world much better and more speedily than He 
is doing now, but without which He could not, per- 
haps, engrave upon the character of His beloved 
Church—as the Church—the heavenly obedience of the 
First Missionary. 

It should be noted here that the Church, as such, has 
but one collective obligation; that involved in the 
“sreat commission.” Individually every child of God 


124 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


has his earthly path marked out for him, and no two 
travel exactly the same path, because the spiritual 
needs of no two are exactly alike. But the Church, 
as a whole, needs but one charge for its discipline in 
collective experience and the “go ye” of its Lord is 
perfectly adapted to that need. 

The purpose of ‘Works, then, is Christlikeness in 
the child of God by the efficacy of action to mold spirit. 
But what is the purpose of Christlikeness? Why is 
it necessary that the believer should become Christlike ? 

Although the Law, having served its purpose, is 
now a thing of the previous dispensation and the “law 
of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus” has taken its place 
in God’s economy, so far as the Church is concerned, 
the foundation upon which the Law stood has never 
been abrogated. 


Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 


This is the first and great commandment. 

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
as thyself. 

On these two commandments hang all the law and the 
prophets. —Mat. 22: 37-40. 

The greatest of all the commandments is as binding 
today as it ever was, with the fundamental difference 
between the past dispensation and the present that, in 
the past, it was impossible to obey, while in this it ds 
possible, made so by the spirit-given experience of 
Grace entirely changing the character of the Man. 

Christlikeness is the key to Christ-knowledge. To 


OF SAVING FAITH 125 


know Christ that which is primarily necessary for the 
believer is that he shall do Christ; or, in other words, 
shall share his experience. 


Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, 
One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou 
hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. 


—Mark 10: 21. 

We have already tried to show that experience is 
the matrix in which the spirit takes its form. We 
understand men, or “know” them, in the degree in 
which we have shared their experience. 

But still another “Why?” Why know Jesus Christ? 
Because to know Him is to love Him and to love Him 
is to fulfill the greatest of all the commandments and 
meets the ultimate requirements of Him who is at 
once the God of love and the Righteous Judge. 


It is not faith, nor righteousness, nor zeal, nor 
patience, nor any of a host of other Christlike qualities 
that God wants most from His children, it is this: 
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart 
and with all thy mind and with all thy soul and with 
all thy strength.” And this because the very essence 
of the Divine Being, the law that unifies Father, Son 
and Holy Spirit, is Love, and love calls for return in 
kind. Truly ‘many that are last shall be first” and by 
the same token, many that are first shall be last. 

While the Word of Testimony is given to the be- 
liever primarily for the Spirit’s use with the unsaved 
and, secondarily, to teach him the Holy Spirit’s 


126 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


methods and personality, the believer’s works are given 
him that, thereby entering into the experience of his 
Lord he may partake of His likeness and, becoming 
like Him may better know and understand Him and, 
knowing Him, learn to love Him. 


CHAPTER XIV 
THE RENEWING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 
(CONTINUED ) 


The Believer’s Worship 

God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him 
in spirit and in truth. John 4: 24. 

For a similar reason, in respect of the Father, wor- 
ship is made a part of Christian experience. Worship 
is a soul-movement toward God. Its realm is the 
emotions. Its accepted exercise is prayer. Prayer is, 
perhaps, the nearest to perfection in worship, for 
prayer “in spirit and in truth” involves an out-moving 
of soul toward God. Its object is to bring the believer 
to know the Father, just as witnessing in the Spirit 
brings him into knowledge of the Spirit and works 
into knowledge of the Son. Any procedure, therefore, 
by which we properly give expression toward God of 
our sense of dependence upon and submission to Him 
in all things, has in it the element of worship. 


But a prostration of body before God, thus express- 
ing our relation of dependence upon Him, no matter 
how unfeigned, would not be all of worship, for wor- 
ship must be “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23); 
that is to say, there must be a spiritual act involved and 
it must be true; i.e., heartfelt. 


The spirit’s relation to the act of worship is the at- 


127 
9 


128 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


titude of communion—literally, joint-ownership—a 
taking from Him, spiritually, that for which we de- 
pend upon Him. 

If we come to Him “in whom we live and move and 
have our being” to express to Him our dependence 
upon Him, and then neglect to accept as from His hand 
that for which we depend, the worship is not “in spirit 
and in truth.” — 

Communion is always accomplished through the 
medium of speech, or its equivalent. There is no better 
channel for the exercise of spiritual joint-ownership. 
When we commune with men, we speak with them. 
We exchange thoughts. It is just so in communion 
with the Father. 

To talk with another we must have a common plane 
of understanding upon which to meet; for if one can- 
not make himself understood he cannot talk with 
another. But can we hope to meet God on the plane 
of His understanding? What, then, shall be the level 
on which God and His creature, Man, shall commune? 
There is one thing that everybody can talk about. 
The most ignorant as well as the most erudite of men 
can talk about what he wants. ‘This is the level of our 
understanding and God condescends to meet us there 
and establishes prayer, the very essence of worship, 
upon a plane not above the reach of the lowliest. 

“Ask and ye shall receive.” 

“Ask that your joy may be full.” 

That true prayer is true worship is proved by the 
fact that soul-satisfaction is the result. How beauti- 








OF SAVING FAITH 129 


fully this is suggested by the words of the forty-second 
Psalm: “As panteth the hart after the water brooks, 
so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” 

One of the great needs of the child of God is to 
realize that God’s attitude toward him is that of fa- 
ther-love; that “He withholdeth no good thing from 
them that walk uprightly.” That kind and degree of 
trust in the believer which rests upon God’s love, with 
the assurance that He desires the happiness of His 
child, is the best and most acceptable. This is im- 
possible for the natural man who always feels toward 
God that He is a vengeful creditor, from whom he 
may look for only exactions and retaliations: and it 
is not easy for the believer to rid himself of this natu- 
ral feeling completely. But an experience of humble 
desires gratified, of soul-longings appeased through 
answers to prayer, works in him a knowledge of the 
Father’s love which is absolutely essential to his peace 
of mind in dealing with the problems of human life. 


By worship, whose highest exercise is prayer, we 
come to know, through the experience of asking and 
receiving, the love of the Father. 

The sum-total of these three lines of experience is 
such a knowledge of Father, Son and Spirit that the 
old, natural attitude gives place to the new, the true 
and the Christlike. 

I beseeech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, 


that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable 
unto God, which ts your reasonable service. 


And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed 


130 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that 
good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. 
—Romans 12:1, 2. 
Instead of hating God, the believer learns to love 
God. Instead of merely tolerating his neighbor, he 
learns to love him as himself. Instead of loving 
things, he learns to fix his affections not upon the 
things on the earth but upon the things in heaven 
where Christ is. 
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are 
above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the 
earth. 
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 
—Col. 3: 1-3. 
How Divine the skill with which this is all por- 
trayed in the so-called parable of the “prodigal son.” 


The one thing wrong with that young man was 
wrongness of spirit: wrong toward his father, wrong 
toward the rest of the household, wrong toward things. 
The one thing that is accomplished in him by his es#- 
perience was rightness of spirit: right toward his fa- 
ther, right toward the rest of the household, even to 
the meanest of the servants, for he is willing to take 
his place among them, and right toward things, for in 
so being willing he relinquished all thought of anything 
more than a bare living. 

This is a parable of the second work of Grace, the 
Renewing of the Holy Spirit. It has nothing to do 
with the unsaved—it starts with sonship. But not 


OF SAVING FAITH 131 


with sonship in spirit; and the whole intent of the 
parable is to show what sonship in spirit is and how 
it is brought about—by experience. The result of the 
boy’s experience is that he sees things as his father 
sees them; and this it is to be possessed of the Holy 
Spirit in His second aspect—as the Spirit of Truth. 

The elder brother provides the climax of the story. 
His spirit: is really the same as that of the younger 
when he went away—even worse. He has had no ex- 
perience of suffering to bring him face to face with 
his own mean self. He fills the sombre background 
of the picture and stands for a colossal truth in Chris- 
tian experience; viz., that it is possible to be a son in 
fact but not in spirit; and that such a son cannot but 
grieve the Father Heart. (Luke 15.) 

But we must not dismiss this triunity without tak- 
ing into consideration the provision God has made 
for the possible shortcoming of the operation of spirit 
renewal. 

Certain it is that very many regenerate believers pass 
out of this world into the next very little, if any, 
changed in spirit, still possessed by world-love and far 
from possessing God’s way of looking at things. In 
many ways the “renewing of the Holy Spirit” in the 
believer may be frustrated. 

Granted that a man is “born again,” but that the 
Holy Spirit’s gentle guidings are ignored by him, the 
world’s offerings being so attractive that separation 
from them fails of accomplishment, the triunity of 
Salvation cannot be made complete. He accepts the 


132 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


new life by the Grace of God, but ignorantly or wil- 
fully rejects the new Spirit—“the mind which was in 
Christ Jesus.” This man is not what God calls saved, 
and yet he is certainly not lost, for he has fulfilled 
the simple requirements of regenerating faith. What 
is to be done with him? The “new creature’—the in- 
born Christ—cannot be banished “from the presence 
of the Lord” neither can “the friendship of the world” 
which is “enmity with God” be permitted to come into 
the Divine Presence. But “shall not the judge of all 
the earth do right?” The Church of Christ must 
undergo a judgment. It is not in respect of sin, there 
are no books opened; it is to test the character-struc- 
ture which the believer has erected upon the one and 
only foundation, the Christ-in-him bestowed as the 
Gift of Grace. In this, the judgment of fire, every 
vestige of naturalness or un-Christlikeness of spirit 
shall be ‘destroyed, the “wood, hay and stubble” of 
worldliness consumed, leaving the purged believer, 
saved “‘yet so as by fire” to enter the Eternal Condition 
with his Spirit-lessons unlearned, his Christ-character 
unformed. (1 Cor. 3:15.) 

We have no clear revelation of the destiny of that 
soul. The Word does not deal much with the develop- 
ments of the eternal condition. We know that there 
are those who shall be called “least in the Kingdom of 
Heaven” and those that shall be called “great in the 
Kingdom of Heaven.” 


—— i es 


CHAPTER XV 
REHABILITATION 
The Third Work of Grace In the Believer 


For we know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, 
earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is 
from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be 
found naked. For we that are of this tabernacle do groan, 
being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but 
clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. 2 
Corinthians 5: 1-4. 


HE clothing-upon of the Divine Soul and Spirit 

with the “house not made with hands” is the third 
work of Grace in the believer, and absolutely neces- 
sary to the consummation of a salvation which shall 
conform the child of God to the image of his Elder 
Brother, for He who rose from the grave and ascended 
into heaven inhabited such a body at that time, and 
there is not the slightest warrant for supposition that 
He ever relinquished it. In fact the manifest teaching 
of the word is that He did not. 


For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be 
conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first- 
born among many brethren. —Romans 8: 29. 

133 


134 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up 
into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you 
into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him 
go into heaven. —Acts 1:11. 


This third work of Grace—this ‘“‘uttermost salva- 
tion” —involves the regeneration or renewing of the 
body. The specific act which accomplishes rehabilita- 
tion for those who “sleep in Jesus” is known as the 
“First Resurrection,’ and the miracle which changes 
the bodies of those “which are alive and remain” at 
that time and makes them to be “like unto his glorious 
body” occurs immediately after the first resurrection 
(“for the dead in Christ shall rise first”), when those 
who have risen and those who have been changed shall 
together be “caught up” in what is known as “the Rap- 
ture of the Church.” 

Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrec- 
tion: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall 
be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a 
thousand years. —Rev. 20: 6. 

For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we 
look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; 

Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned 
like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby 
he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. 

—Phil. 3:20, 21. 

For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we 
which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall 
not prevent them which are asleep. 

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, 
with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: 
And the dead in Christ shall rise first: 


OF SAVING FAITH 135 


Then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up to- 
gether with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: 
and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 


Wherefore comfort one another with these words. 
—1 Thess. 4: 15-18. 


The body, sown in the corruption of death, shall in 
due season rise in new form, and yet be unmistakably 
the same. The grain of wheat that decays in the earth, 
is the same being when it rises to the light and warmth 
of a new existence, although its form is not the same. 
The “bare grain” is the natural body, while the new 
plant is the spiritual body—‘“For there is a natural 
body and there is a spiritual body.” 

Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except 
it die: 

And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that 
shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some 
other grain: 

But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to 
every seed his own body. 

All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh 
of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another 
of birds. 

There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but 
the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial 
is another. 

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the 
moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth 
from another star in glory. 

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in cor- 
ruption, it is raised in incorruption: 


136 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown in 
weakness, it is raised in power: 

It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There 
is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. 

—l1 Cor. 15: 36-44. 

The body’s use or purpose in this natural life differs 
little if any from its uses in the Life to come except, 
perhaps, that it is more restricted. Here it serves as 
the engine of the Ego. It is the machinery which the 
Ego puts into operation to accomplish its will. As 
previously stated, the will is the prerogative of the 
Ego alone. It is not an attribute of either spirit, soul 
or body, but of their sum-total—I, myself. 


The offices of Faith, at once the simplest and most 
mysterious of the active elements in the salvation 
process, are sometimes misapprehended, and truth has 
suffered somewhat from this fact. 


Faith does not save. “By Grace are ye saved 
through faith.” . 

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of 
yourselves; it is the gift of God: 

Not of works, lest any man should boast. —Eph. 2:8. 

Faith is the door through which ineffable Grace 
enters. If it were permissible to venture another defi- 
nition of faith it would be: Faith is Ego’s “I will!” 
It is the spark which fires the body into action. It 
was John G. Wooley who launched one of his great 
prohibition speeches with the statement, “Faith is a 
trinity.” The mind conceives the thought, the soul’s 
emotion impels, the body moves to accomplishment. 


OF SAVING FAITH 137 


Without the body is no action; without action faith is 
dead. There are plenty of people who believe enough 
to be saved who are not saved and never will be unless 
“T will!’ opens the door to Grace. 

Without the body the accomplishment of any desire 
or purpose of the will is impossible. The saved soul 
would be, without the saved body, throughout all the 
ages an impotent entity. Filled with all the Divine 
impulses of love, mercy and truth, it would be abso- 
lutely unable to perform any act of love, mercy and 
truth; and God’s Salvation, in that degree, would be 
incomplete in it. 

Those shades of departed friends who tip tables, 
play mandolins and delightfully mystify supernatu- 
rally wise “psychic researchers” are but base imper- 
sonations by a class of beings, the demons, who, in a 
preternatural relation to the world of matter in which 
we live are capable of temporarily assuming embodi- 
ment of some kind for the exercise of force within 
certain limits, but departed human beings, although 
they exist as a duo-unity (soul and spirit, only) are 
not possessed of bodies of any kind, and are utterly 
unable to produce any physical effect, no matter how 
much they might desire to do so; for the spiritual 
body is not received until the still future resurrection. 

So important is the reémbodiment of the child of 
God as a part of the Plan of Salvation, that Jesus said 
concerning His revelation of the existence of the spir- 
itual body or soul-mansion, that which He never said 


138 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


of any other of His teachings: “If it were not so I 
would have told you.” 


Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe 
also in me. 

In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, 
I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, 
and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may 
be also. —John 14: 1-3. 

For we know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens. 

For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon 
with our house which is from heaven. 2) Corea ei, 

So necessary is this spiritual body to the completion 
of God’s purpose to restore Man to the full glory 
which was his in the First Adam, that Jesus four times 
affirms His purpose, in that wonderful sixth chapter 
of John, to reclaim the precious thing from the dust 
to which it has returned. 

And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all 
which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise 
it up again at the last day. 

And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one 
which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlast- 
ing life: and I will raise him up at the last day. 

No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent 
me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. 

Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal 
life; and I will raise him up at the last day. 

—John 6: 39, 40, 44, 54. 

The eternal state of the saved is never pictured to 
us as a condition of impotent existence. On the con- 


OF SAVING FAITH 139 » 


trary, the visions we have of the supernatural are al- 
ways pulsing with power and effectiveness. 


Only of God may it be said that he can perform His 
will without the agency of matter in some form: and 
that statement, to be true, might have to be made with 
some qualification, for we find, on contemplation of 
the Incarnate Word that, “without him [Christ] was 
not anything made that was made.” If God said 
“Light!” there may have been a vocal organ with 
which to say it. 

All things were made by him; and without him was not any 
thing made that was made. —John 1:3. 

This spiritual habitation, also likened to a garment 
because it is not born of parent nor grown from the 
elements, but “put on,” becomes the dead believer’s by 
the miracle of the resurrection, and the living be- 
liever’s by a miracle, the nature of which is suggested 
only once—“We shall be changed.” Both processes 
result in the same “body like unto his glorious body.” 
The “mortal puts on immortality,” the ‘“corruptible 
puts on incorruption.” 

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal 
must put on immortality. 

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and 
this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought 
to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in 
victory. —2 Cor. 15:53, 54. 

The spiritual body has three striking characteristics. 
I. It is “a house eternal in the heavens.” II. It is im- 
mortal. III. It is incorruptible. 


140 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


I. It shall exist forever. Not only shall it exist 
forever, but it shall so exist in perfect correspondence 
with its perfect environment—The Life. A body 
might exist forever; i.e., be “eternal,” just as the 
mumified body of Pharaoh has existed for so great a 
length of time that it seems almost an eternity com- 
pared with the life of man, and yet be a lifeless body— 
a dead thing. But this body cannot lose its life-rela- 
tion to its environment any more than it can cease to 
exist as a body. It shall be immortal—un-die-able. 


Furthermore, while it cannot cease to exist nor cease 
to live, neither can it be injured, defiled, nor incapaci- 
tated in any way. It shall be “incorruptible.” Through- 
out the ages of ages it shall continue in the full blaze 
of its Godlike glory and power, absolutely superior to 
all limitations. So far as we know there is but one 
being-inhabited globe in space; but there is no reason 
to suppose that there may not be millions of globes 
just as habitable, or more so, than ours, all of which 
may, at some time, be teeming with physically perfect, 
sorrowless, sinless, deathless beings, kept sinless, sor- 
rowless and deathless by the loving guidance and su- 
preme power of Jesus Christ, administered by those 
than whom no other beings in the universe, by their 
experience, could be better fitted to serve in that ca- 
pacity—the one-time despised Church of Christ. 

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs 


with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may 
be also glorified together. . —Romans 8:17. 


Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the 


OF SAVING FAITH 141 


poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom 
which he hath promised to them that love him?—James 2: 5. 


It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall 
also live with Aum: 


If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, 
he also will deny us: —2 Tim. 2:11, 12. 


And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God 
and of the Lamb shall be in it: and his servants shall serve 
him. 

And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their 
foreheads. 


And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, 
neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: 
and they shall reign for ever and ever. —Rev. 22: 3-5. 

Throughout the ages the “co-heirs with Christ,” the 
first begotten, shall, under Him, exercise supreme ad- 
ministrative powers in all the universe. The super- 
natural body, as the engine of the supernatural will, 
is as absolutely necessary to such a destiny as it is to 
a heavenly existence possessed of no element of limita- 
tion. 


But the question may well be asked: “Shall all be- 
lievers in the Deity of Jesus Christ attain to this glori- 
ous consummation?” The answer is: apparently not. 
There was something for which Paul strove; for 
which he kept his body under; for which he hoped 
without the assurance of faith. It was that he might 
be approved. (See 1 Cor. 9:27, in which the word 
“castaway” is, literally, “one disapproved.’’) 

It is quite possible that those who are saved only to 
the extent of having received the gift of the Divine 


142 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


Zoé—and by far the larger number of professing 
Christians may be in this class—will occupy a place 
lower, as to privilege and authority, than those who 
have yielded all in obedient devotion and have fol- 
lowed Him “in the regeneration”; for certain it is 
that nine lepers were as perfectly cleansed (type of the 
new birth) as the tenth, and equally certain that they 
were, in some sense, unsatisfactory to their Saviour. 
Besides which there are least and greatest in the King- 
dom of Heaven. 

And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? 
but where are the nine? 


There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save 
this stranger. —Luke 17:17, 18. 


Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least com- 
mandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least 
in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach 
them, the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of heaven. 

—Mat. 5:19. 
And again, Heaven is itself at least triune. 

I knew a man in Christ about fourteen years ago, (whether 
in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I can- 
not tell: God knoweth;) such a one caught up to the third 
heaven. —2 Cor. 12:2. 


CHAPTER XVI 
THE EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT 


The Believer’s Present Heaven 


HE three works of Grace which, when consum- 
mated, accomplish “uttermost salvation” in the 

child of God, are all performed in the realms of faith. 

The believer becomes a new creature in Christ-Life 
when he accepts by faith God’s statement concerning 
His Son and throws himself upon the righteousness 
and justice of God for salvation from his sins. 

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us 
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

—1 John 1:9. 

But his new birth is a mystery. He may not know, 
himself, just when it occurs. After it has occurred 
he must base his assurances of regeneration upon the 
word of the Son of God that “whosoever heareth my 
word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlast- 
ing life and shall not come into condemnation, but is 
passed from death unto life,” and like passages. 

When, obediently following his Master, by faith he 
learns his lessons of sanctification, and finds himself 
living in the Spirit of Truth, with a “conscience void 
of offense,” he still must needs turn for his assurances 
to the written Word. 

As for that day when the “dead in Christ shall rise 


143 
10 


144 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


first,’ when “this mortal shall put on immortality,” 
concerning his part in the glorious miracle, he must 
still depend upon the “thus saith the Lord.” 

In all the vicissitudes of Christian experience and 
throughout his earth life as a son of God he would 
have no anchor to his soul save the unaided and, at 
best, unstable grasp of his memory upon the reported 
words of Jesus and the inspired revelation of the en- 
tirety of the Word of God, were it not for the loving 
provision made by the Father for His constant assist- 
ance and comfort in the concrete actualities of the 
“Earnest of the Spirit.” Without the earnest of the 
Spirit the Church, like the Israelites of old, would be 
continually lapsing into forgetfulness and faithlessness, 
and for the same reason; viz., the absence of the spir- 
itually concrete in their lives. And it might further 
be said that the great “falling away first” with which 
we are already confronted in the history of the 
Church, has arisen from the fact that the earnest of 
the Spirit has not been availed of in the practice of 
the average professor. 

Long before the period during which Paul wrote 
his epistles there existed in some parts of the eastern 
world a curious custom, perhaps half law, which gave 
the privilege to a man purchasing a piece of land, to 
take a handful of it away with him as a sample of 
the property which he had purchased. This handful 
was called “the earnest.” It not only served as a 
sample, but also, in some sense, as proof of the trans- 
action. 


Oe ee Dede hea he 


OF SAVING FAITH 145 


The salient thing about it was that, assured of the 
fact that he had actually acquired the land, all he had 
to do was to take the sample. Note the “I will” of 
faith. 

The earnest of the Spirit is mentioned but three 
times in the New Testament; and it is a significant 
fact that each time it is mentioned it is in more or less 
direct relation to one of the three works of Grace with 
which we have been dealing in our consideration of 
the Salvation Triunity. 

The first mention of the earnest of the Spirit is 
found in 2 Corinthians first chapter and twenty-second 
verse, the twenty-first and twenty-second verses being, 
apparently, a reversion to the thought of the twelfth 
verse, that which intervenes being in the nature of one 
of those interpolations or parentheses so frequently 
found in Paul’s writings. If, then, the twenty-first 
and twenty-second verses are thus to be considered, 
the earnest of the Spirit referred to in the twenty-sec- 
ond is related to the “rejoicing” of the twelfth verse. 

For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, 
that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, 
but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the 
world and more abundantly to youward. 

Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath 
anointed us, is God; 

Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit 
in our hearts. —z2 Cor. 1, 12, 21, 22. 

We find this rejoicing to be the result of a con- 
sciousness on Paul’s part, realized by the testimony of 
his conscience, that his “conversation” (his daily life) 


146 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


not only in respect of the Corinthians, but of the whole 
world, was had in simplicity and godly sincerity and 
that, “by the grace of God” and not in “fleshly 
wisdom.” In other words, that his dealings with the 
Corinthians were godly, sincere and simple, and there- 
fore acceptable to God. As a result of this godliness 
of life, his conscience permits him to rejoice. It is in 
connection with this fact that he mentions in the pas- 
sage cited the sealing and the gift of the “earnest of 
the spirit in our hearts.” 

Much confusion seems to exist in the minds of many 
Christians as to the experience spoken of as the “‘sec- 
ond blessing’; the testimony of those so speaking 
identifying the “second blessing” with holiness, and 
holiness with sanctification. No little harm seems to 
have resulted from this confusion of terms. 

The Greek word “hagios’ has two renderings in the 
English of the Word; viz., “sanctification” and “holi- 
ness.” But these two are not in all cases synonymous 
any more than sititng and setting are the same in sense. 

When the believer has become identified with Christ 
Jesus in His Cross-work and has entered the Kingdom 
of God by its only door—the new birth—God sets him 
apart as in Christ, to be dealt with as a child would be 
dealt with by his father, thereby to be fitted for the 
“adoption” to which, because of His foreknowledge, 
He foreordained him. This is sanctification—a setting 
apart. Because Christ is holy and the believer is, in 
God’s thought, in Christ, the believer also is holy. In 
this the believer is passive. God acts upon him and in 
him. 


i i i te re 


OF SAVING FAITH 147 


But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto 
us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemp- 
tion: —1 Cor. 1:30. 


Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in 
my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out 
your own salvation with fear and trembling: 

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do 
of his good pleasure. —Phil. 2:12, 13. 

But when, through faith and in sincere devotion to 
his Lord and Master, the believer turns his back on 
the things of the flesh, fixing his affections upon the 
heavenly things, and walks according to the Spirit, 
living in all truth and godliness the Christ life with a 
“conscience void of offense,” this is holiness—a sitting 
apart. In this the believer is active. 

Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us 


cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, per- 
fecting holiness in the fear of God. —2 Cor. 7:1. 


And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one 
toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward 
you: 

To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holi- 
ness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord 
Jesus Christ with all his saints. 

For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holi- 


ness. —1 Thess, 12: 13, 4:7. 
Neither the passive setting apart of the believer by 
God for His own purposes in Christ, nor the active 
sitting apart of the believer in the Christian Walk, is 
the “second blessing” so-called, the main characteristic 
of which is happiness and peace of mind: but the sec- 
ond blessing is the result of a consciousness on the 


148 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


part of the believer that he is right with God, a sort 
of spiritual concretion. 

An “experience” as given by a professor of the sec- 
ond blessing is something like this: At a certain 
“holiness meeting,” after being for a greater or less 
time under conviction of need, and after some resist- 
ance to the promptings of the Spirit, he finally went 
forward and knelt in the straw. There he besought 
God for the complete work of the Spirit in the purify- 
ing of his heart and life. After more or less time 
thus spent in prayerful waiting upon the Holy Spirit, 
suddenly the Spirit came with an indescribable sense 
of peace and joy and filled his heart. This coming 
he calls the “second blessing,” and identifies it with 
holiness. 

The error consists in mistaking this sense of peace 
and joy, realized upon his knees “in the straw,” for 
holiness and so designating it. There is no holiness 
apart from obedience to the Holy Spirit. There is no 
peace or joy apart from obedience to the Holy Spirit. 
The prodigal did not receive the spirit of obedience at 
the moment of his joyful reception by his father, but 
away back there in the hog pasture, where, coming to 
himself, he said, “I will arise and go to my father.” 
The holiness began back there in the rear pew where 
the surrender was made. The peace and joy were the 
effect, vouchsafed by the Holy Spirit, of that sur- 
render; a foretaste—sample—“earnest” of that joy 
unutterable which shall be ours when we shall be in 





OF SAVING FAITH 149 


perfect submission to our Lord and Master in the 
Glory. 

The “second blessing” is neither holiness nor sanc- 
tification. It is the earnest of the Spirit for holiness as 
described by Paul in the passage cited. So long as the 
believer’s spirit is that of obedience, the joy remains. 
The moment his spirit ceases to be that of obedience 
the joy—the “earnest” departs. By professors of this 
experience this is known as “losing the blessing.” 

The loving Architect of our salvation “knoweth our 
frame. He remembereth that we are but dust.” He 
knows the devil’s superhuman adroitness and He knows 
that though we might have faith to move mountains, 
nevertheless we need an abiding conviction of the con- 
crete realities of faith to which we can cling in the 
moment of supreme conflict. This He has given us 
in the foretaste of what it is to be perfectly possessed 
by the spirit of obedience, “the mind which was in 
Christ Jesus.” 

The second reference to the earnest of the Spirit 
(speaking ad seriatim) is found in Second Corinthians, 
the fifth chapter. 

For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be 
dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens. 

For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon 
with our house which is from heaven: if so be that being 
clothed we shall not be found naked. 

For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: 
not for that we should be unclothed, but clothed upon, that 
mortality might be swallowed up of life. 


150 | THE PSYCHOLOGY 


Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, 
who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. 

—2 Cor. 5:1, 2, 4, 5. 

Paul is writing about the Spiritual Body. Here he 
calls it the “house not made with hands, eternal in 
the heavens.” He speaks of putting it on as a man 
puts on clothing and refers to the resurrection and 
the parousia as the time when “mortality shall be 
swallowed up of life,” concluding his rhapsody with the 
statement, “Now he that hath wrought us for the self- 
same thing is God who also hath given unto us the 
earnest of the Spirit’ What should we surmise would 
be a foretaste or earnest of the Spiritual Body? We 
have already considered the three prominent character- 
istics of that body, and we have found them, summed 
up, to constitute absolute superiority to all aeanhi 
forces. Neither time, death, decay, nor contamination 
in any form can affect that wonderful structure. 

The earnest or foretaste of such a body would seem, 
necessarily, to be a natural body in some degree, at 
least, superior to the limitations of the earth life; a 
body which, indwelt by the Holy Spirit of Life, shall 
by that Spirit be lifted above the level of its infir- 
mities. 

But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also 
quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit which dwelleth in you. 

—Romans 8: 11. 

Those who ridicule or question the doctrine of 

“Divine Healing” (not Christian Science even in the 


. OF SAVING FAITH 151 


most remote sense of the term) must reckon with the 
Scripture I here cite. 

Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the 
church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in 
the name of the Lord: 

And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord 
shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall 
be forgiven him. —Jas. 5:14, 15. 

The place of Divine Healing in the Christian ex- 
perience is as unmistakable as that of the witness of 
the Spirit with his spirit that he is born of God, or 
the happiness of a conscience void of offense. 

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; 
but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, 
Abba, Father. 

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are 
the children of God: —Romans 8:15, 16: 

Divine Healing is the earnest of the Spirit for Re- 
habilitation, the third work of Grace in the believer, 
and the foretaste of the supernatural or spiritual body. 
It is not an article of saving faith, any more than either 
of the other earnests of the Spirit already referred to, 
nor is it to be used as a fetich, nor toyed with as a 
spiritual exploit. As the handful of earth was taken 
as a privilege, so the earnest of the Spirit is a privilege, 
operative only for the purpose for which it is in- 
tended; viz., the buttressing of faith by realization: 
for though we walk by faith the way is not without 
its spiritually visible milestones; and this realization is 
vouchsafed to the believer whose faith and obedience 
are spiritually equal to it. 


152 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


It is worthy of notice, in passing, that observation 
seems to lead to the conclusion that generally speaking 
the three experiences of the earnest of the Spirit are 
progressive in their manifestation; that is to say, the 
believer to whose lips the Spirit’s cry of sonship, 
“Abba, Father!’ never comes, never has a true experi- 
ence of the joy of assurance (the second earnest) and 
in like manner the disobedient believer who cannot re- 
joice in assurance cannot rise to sufficient faith to avail 
of the privilege of Divine Healing. 

The third earnest of the Spirit (the first in experi- 
mental sequence) is found in Ephesians 1:13, 14, in 
which Paul speaks of the sealing of the Holy Spirit 
of Promise as the “earnest of our inheritance until the 
redemption of the purchased possession.” 

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of 


truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that 
ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, 


Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption 

of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. 
—Eph. 1:13, 14. 

Here we have “our inheritance” sealed to us by the 
Spirit in an earnest. This earnest of the Spirit must 
be in nature a counterpart of the others; i.e., a fore- 
taste of that for which it stands; and as “our in- 
heritance’” is something which is ours by right of 
birth, whatever is thus to be ours is guaranteed to us 
by the Spirit: and this confirming or guaranteeing 
serves as an earnest of that right. 


We find in Romans eight that almost the first office 


OF SAVING FAITH 153 


of the Spirit for the child of God is to witness to his 
spirit of his Divine sonship, empowering him to utter 
the cry of sonship, “Abba, Father!’ This power, then, 
with the consciousness which it brings, must be the 
foretaste of the heavenly fulness of sonship which shall 
be ours throughout the eternities; and its direct ref- 
erence must be to the new birth, the first work of 
Grace in the believer. 

Likewise the earnest of the Spirit mentioned by Paul 
in connection with his thankfulness and rejoicing has 
reference to the second work of Grace in the believer, 
the Renewing of the Holy Spirit, or holiness—the 
finished work that changes his attitude toward God, 
toward men and toward things. And that mentioned 
in connection with the doctrine of the Resurrection, 
has direct reference to the third work of Grace in the 
believer, the reclothing of the Divine Zoé and the 
Divine Pneuma with the Divine Body in that great day 
of His Appearing. 


CHAPTER XVII 
JUSTIFICATION 


The Ground-Line of the Structure 


(See frontispiece) 


To declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness: that he 
might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in 
Jesus. Romans 3: 26. 


‘*WUSTIFICATION and righteousness are insepa- 

rably united in the Scriptures by the fact that 
the same word, dtkaios, righteous, and dikaioo, to 
justify, is used for both.”—Scofield. 


In the preceding chapters we have sought to point 
out the fact that the work of salvation is conceivable as 
an orderly sequence of events, brought about through 
the direct activity of the Father, the Divine Son, the 
Embodiment of the Father, and the Holy Spirit. 

The beginning is with a threefold work, Redemp- 
tion, performed by the Son for the Man, accomplishing 
deliverance from the threefold grasp of Sin upon his 
natural being; viz., its penalty, its guilt and its unclean- 
ness. 

This is followed by a process, likewise threefold in 
nature, by which the Man is turned in repentance to- 
ward a forgiving Father who is prepared to save him, 

154 


* 


OF SAVING FAITH 155 


the result being reconciliation, a work of Grace also 
performed for the Man by the Holy Spirit. 

Then, following immediately upon or coincident with 
Reconciliation, comes the first work of Grace in the 
believer; i.e., the planting in his natural being, as a 
seed is planted in a pot of earth, of the New Zoé, the 
Divine, Supernatural life-principle, which act, the work 
of the Divine Father, ushers him into the Kingdom of 
God, constitutes him a younger brother of the “first- 
begotten” born of water and the Spirit; this by a free 
gift of Grace. 

Then ensues a series of experiences, more or less 
progressive, according to the obedience of the in- 
dividual believer, by which, following the Holy Spirit’s 
leadings, his natural attitude toward God, toward men 
and toward things is changed to the Holy attitude 
(God’s way of looking at things), and he is trans- 
formed by the “renewing of his mind.” The Holy 
Spirit of Truth becomes his spirit; this by an experi- 
ence of Grace. 

And lastly, by a miracle of Grace his vile body is 


d9 66% 


made “like unto His glorious body,” “in the twinkling 
of an eye at the last trump.” 


And in all this we have found no place for a most 
important doctrine in the teachings of the Church— 
Justification—a making righteous, whose application 
is limited to those who believe. 


And by him, all that believe are justified from all things, 
from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses. 
Acts 13: 39. 


156 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


Not that Justification is not as important in fact as 
it is in the teachings of the Church, but that it is not 
a part of the Plan of Salvation. 

Likening that Plan to the plan of a building, Justi- 
fication answers to the ground line. This is of extreme 
importance to the building; in fact the whole plan 
thereof must be adapted to the ground line; and yet 
the ground line is not a part of the plan, much less of 
the building. 

The extreme importance of Justification lies in the 
fact that its primary effect is upon God’s relation to 
His own Law; “making it possible for Him righteously 
to show mercy” (Scofield). Without it the Architect 
of the Plan would be as much in error as the architect 
of a building who had ignored his ground line: for 
the whole Plan of Salvation would be abortive if, at 
the very last moment after the great work of Regen- 
eration had been consummated, the righteousness of 
God must demand the life of the recipient of all His 
Grace in order that the integrity of His own Law 
might be upheld. The real thing at stake is the suc- 
cess of the Plan. Therefore the Plan must be adapted 
to the great truth that God cannot violate His own 
Law. 

To declare, J say, at this time, his righteousness: that he 
might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. 

—Romans 3: 26. 

The printers use the word justify in almost exactly 
the sense in which it is rightly to be applied in our 
consideration of this topic. 


OF SAVING FAITH 157 


The line of types are set, one at a time, in an ad- 
justable receptacle called a “stick.”” When the line is 
finished, if found either too long or too short for the 
space predetermined in which it should exactly fit, 
there must be a rearrangement of the spaces between 
the words of the line so that it shall exactly fit and be 
the same length as all the other lines in the stick. This 
the printer calls “justifying his line.’ The types are 
not affected in any degree by the operation, nor are 
the words, neither is the line itself any better or worse. 
It is the plan that is conserved. Without “justifica- 
tion” all his work will prove futile. At the first at- 
tempt to print the matter will fly into “pi.” 

The error in the application of this doctrine, as com- 
monly understood, is that the believer is permitted to 
assume, or is taught to believe, that Justification 
makes him righteous in fact; thus adding to the in- 
nate phariseeism of all flesh, of which it might not be 
too much to say that it is, perhaps, the greatest 
obstacle with which the Holy Spirit has to contend in 
the performance of his office-work in the child of God, 
as well as in the unsaved. 

Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Phari- 
see, and the other a publican. 

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself,’ God, I 
thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, un- 
just, adulterers, or even as this publican. 

I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. 

And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so 
much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, say- 
ing, God be merciful to me a sinner. 


158 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather 
than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be 
abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. 

—Luke 18: 10-14. 

Legalism, the flickering candle to the Galatian moth, 
has not lost its perilous charm for the child of God. 
It seems almost. impossible to divest his mind of the 
feeling that in some way his own goodness is con- 
tributing to the work of Divine Grace and is in some 
measure earning for him eternal life: and his inmost 
assurances of the loving kindness of his Heavenly Fa- 
ther are not infrequently predicated upon his own as- 
sumption of acceptability to God because of his legal 
rightness. I well remember listening with consider- 
able astonishment to a Christian gentleman who 
ascribed his business success to the recognition by the 
Almighty of the fact that he never worked on Sunday. 

“O foolish Galatians!” cries Paul, “received ye the 
Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of 
faith?” And well might his question come to us to- 
day with our ritualism and phariseeism. Anything 
that stimulates or conserves the believer’s innate phari- 
seeism is detrimental to the work of Grace in him. 
The preaching of the Law to the believer is minimiz- 
ing the Cross of Christ. 

Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ 
shall profit you nothing. 

For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he 
is a debtor to do the whole law. 

Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you 
are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. 


—Gal. 5:2-4. 


OF SAVING FAITH 159 


I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness 
come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. —Gal. 2:21. 

Exhortation to holy living for the law’s sake is more 
likely to inculcate the prayer of the Pharisee than the 
cry of the publican. 

The other brother is usually neglected in our ex- 
positions of the fifteenth of Luke. He seems to be 
hard to place. But from one point of view he is the 
more important of the two. He is the respectable, 
law-keeping, self-righteous church member. So well 
satisfied with himself is he that he cannot understand 
his father’s love, nor enter into his spirit. He is the 
self-justified legalist, the professor of righteousness 
who has mistaken his own filthy rags for the righteous- 
ness of Christ. From the younger brother when he 
went away he differs in spirit only in being more con- 
temptible. He is the child of God, who, as yet, has never 
been favored with a self-revealing, righteousness- 
_ smashing experience. But he is a son, just as much a 
son in fact as the younger, but no more a son 1m spirit 
than he when he took his departure. 

The record does not indicate that his father’s ap- 
peal had any effect whatever upon him. The hardest 
people in the world to do anything for spiritually are 
the self-satisfied Galatians; the people who have not 
missed a Sunday School session in twenty-seven years. 
Think of it! who have read their Bible through nine- 
teen times and expect to read it through as many times 
more if they are spared. Take off your hat! 

The psychoanalysis of self-righteousness would 

11 


160 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


prove to be an interesting study, and a profitable, to 
anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. 

But the crowning beauty of the story is the loving 
patience of the Father with this son—‘“All that I have 
is thine.” 

It almost seems that the parable has been wrongly 
named. It should be “The parable of the prodigal fa- 
ther”—prodigal of love and mercy and gentleness and 
tenderness toward this unsanctified, unholy,  self- 
righteous son. 

The primary significance and importance of Justi- 
fication is, as stated above, the conservation of the 
justness of God. Secondarily it does make the believer 
righteous, but judicially so only; just as the criminal, 
tried, convicted and punished, is judicially righteous 
and can never again be charged with that crime. 

But this judicial righteousness has no relation to the 
believer’s behavior. He is perfectly free to do wrong, 
and quite as capable as before of so doing, if he will. 

Therefore, having no direct effect upon the Man 
himself, neither upon God, for there is nothing change- 
able in Him, Justification, effective primarily for the in- 
tegrity of the Law and the success of the Plan, is 
rightly to be considered extraneous to the latter in the 
same sense in which the ground line is not a part of 
the architect’s plan, although of extreme importance 
thereto, 


CHAPTER XVIII 
IN CONCLUSION 


The prime object of these brief pages is to show 
that triunity is a factor in the domain of Revelation; 
that the evidences of God’s “eternal power and God- 
head” which exist in His Book of Works, Nature, are 
likewise discernible in the Bible, His Book of Words; 
and that this fact serves as a key to many of the fund- 
amental principles invoived in the Plan of Salvation, 
concerning which there is more or less uncertainty 
among Christian people. 

To illustrate: A large class of earnest believers ac- 
cept the teaching that “salvation” is based upon the 
choosing, by God, of a certain number of individuals 
from among men, to be saved; and, by inference, the 
leaving of the balance, by God, to hopelessly perish. 
This is the popular conception of the Calvinistic 
doctrine of “fore-ordination” or “predestination.” On 
the other hand, a large class of equally earnest be- 
lievers deny this doctrine and hold that it is refuted by 
John 3:16 and kindred passages, which clearly hold 
out the offer of grace “free to all,” leaving it to man 
to decide whether he shall accept or repel the offers 
of mercy. These utterly reject the doctrine of fore- 
ordination, crying “grace is free!” 

It is impossible, with a one-sided view of the mean- 
ing of the word “Salvation,” to harmonize these 

161 


162 THE PSYCHOLOGY 


differences of belief, but an apprehension of the triune 
nature of the thought will reveal, at once, the fact that 
predestination is not to be rejected; that it has its 
proper and effective place in the Plan, but that place 
is not with the uwnbeliever at all, and has no relation to 
him, but to the believer, who, only, can possibly “be 
conformed to the image” of Jesus Christ. The dif- 
ference between the believer and the unbeliever is 
what God “did foreknow,” and “whom he did fore- 
know he did predestinate’—not to be regenerated, that 
was the matter of “foreknowledge, and “whomsoever 
will” may “have eternal life’”—but, after his regenera- 
tion, to be “conformed” to the image of his son, that 
He might be the first born of many brethren” (Rom. 
8:29); i. e, that he should be renewed in spirit, the 
second member of the salvation trinity and “clothed 
upon’ with that “house which is from heaven,” the 
third member of the salvation trinity. These three and 
nothing less than these three, will serve to “conform” 
the regenerate sinner to the “image of his son;” and 
this and not less than this, is what God, in His 
dictionary, calls “Salvation.” (See also Eph. 1:5, 
where the predestination is not unto generation— 
“children’’—but unto “adoption” literally “placing as a 
son” of “children,” or sanctification. ) 

Again, the triune nature of “Reconciliation” throws 
much light upon the real attitude of God toward the 
sinner; viz., that of instant readiness, because of the 
law-fulfilling office of the Lamb, to bestow upon him, 
repentant, the remission which the shed blood ac- 


OF SAVING FAITH 163 


complished. By thus bestowing it upon him He makes 
it, for him, forgiveness, without which, reconciliation 
on Man’s side is absolutely impossible, the second death 
absolutely inevitable and the chance-taking world’s 
hope of somehow being brought under the effective- 
ness of the blood at the last moment, without a definite 
acceptance of God’s terms here and now, an empty 
delusion of the Devil. 

The writer begs to commend to all lovers of the Word 
such lines of study, each for himself, as shall lead to 
a fuller appreciation of the importance of triunity as 
a factory in the Spirit’s presentation of the Truth. 

The highest aim of a teacher should be to induce his 
hearer to “search” for himself as to whether the state- 
ments made are true. 

The Spirit always prefers to do His own teaching ; 
and the best taught believer is the one who learns most 
at first hand. To this end a suggestion is ofttimes 
enough. 

It is the writer’s hope that there is enough of the 
suggestive in these few pages to awaken Berean in- 
quisitiveness in some devout soul whose “delight is in 
the law of the Lord.” 

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